What He'll Sorely Miss
by HarmonyPie714
Summary: What if, at the bottom of the Black Lake, Harry had made a different decision? Set in fourth year, exploring the repercussions of Harry's hasty decision. Rated T for safety. H/Hr.
1. The Second Task

**A/N: I've been sitting on a mostly finished draft of this for a while, but I finally decided to finish it off tonight. I originally thought this would be a one-shot, but as I approached the ending I realized I couldn't tell this whole story in one chapter, so expect a few more chapters after this. I hope you guys enjoy it; please feel free to let me know what you think.**

Harry swam through the water of the Black Lake with urgency. He figured he was making good time - the Gillyweed Dobby had given him had caused him to develop webbed hands and feet, which allowed him to swim faster than humanly possible - but the clock was still ticking, and there was no time to lose. Harry dove deeper and deeper, the water growing ever colder and the light ever dimmer, but there was still no sign of the merpeople. They would be at the bottom, Harry figured, which was further away than he had thought. Finally, after another minute or two of diving, Harry saw the rocky bottom of the lake. He had to be close now - the hostages couldn't be too far away from the platform where the champions had started, or it would be impossible for any of them to return within the hour.

There they were! Harry heard a snatch of song to his left, through a tall patch of seaweed.

"While you're searching ponder this, we've taken what you'll sorely miss."

Harry followed the source of the sound, pushing through the tangled seaweed, which had, rather annoyingly, decided to start wrapping itself around his legs.

"An hour long you'll have to look, to recover what we've took."

Less than that, now, Harry thought grimly as he pulled his left leg out of a tightening loop of seaweed. It must be enchanted; it was too focused on ensnaring him for its movement to simply be because of the current.

"Past an hour the prospect's black, too late, it's gone, it won't come back."

Harry was fairly confident that the hostages would be safe, even if their respective champion didn't rescue them in time. After all, Dumbledore had arranged for all of this, and surely he wouldn't put student's lives at risk. Then again, he'd had no problems with letting Harry face the Horntail. And this _was_ a tournament that people had died in before, and Harry didn't find Mr. Crouch's assurances of "new safety measures" too comforting. Harry figured that the people who had died had all been champions, not innocent bystanders, but it was impossible to say for sure.

Harry redoubled his efforts, ripping his other leg free and quickly swimming out of the bewitched plant's reach. He could see the merpeople now, gathered in a sort of clearing just up ahead of where he was. They were surrounding four bodies that floated just above the lake bottom, their feet tied with more strands of that blasted seaweed. Harry swam up to them, giving a quick nod to the merpeople, scanning their faces to see which was his.

The first hostage he didn't recognize; she had long, silvery hair, and seemed quite young, not more than ten or eleven. She was probably related to Fleur, Harry decided, but that didn't matter. She definitely wasn't his to rescue.

The second hostage was Hermione. Harry quickly reached for his wand, hoping he wasn't too late.

"Relashio!" he tried to say, but all that came out of his mouth was a burst of bubbles, and the seaweed was unaffected. Magic clearly wouldn't work. He swam quickly down to the floor of the lake, grabbed the sharpest rock he could find, and used it to slice through Hermione's restraints.

He grabbed her hand as soon as she was free, carrying her towards the surface of the lake as rapidly as he could. He looked down at the other hostages as he swam, feeling somewhat guilty about leaving them behind, but he wasn't sure if he could carry more than one, and he had to make sure Hermione was safe. He honestly hadn't even looked at the others once he had seen her, and so he was surprised to see that Cho and Ron were the last two hostages. Cho made sense; she'd be Cedric's hostage, of course, but who was supposed to rescue Ron? If Harry was rescuing Hermione, and Cedric would be there for Cho, and the silvery-haired girl was Fleur's, then that left Krum for Ron, which couldn't possibly be right. But there was no time to wonder about that now; Harry could feel the gills at his neck slowly starting to shrivel up, and he had to make it back before they closed completely.

There was a sudden rush of water around Harry, and he shrunk back as a massive shark swam up beside him. It wasn't entirely a shark, Harry realized. It had human hands, one of which was firmly grasping Ron's, and its face still looked quite a bit like Krum's. It wasn't a complete Transfiguration, but it was still quite impressive.

It occurred to Harry as he saw Krum that they must have switched hostages. It made no sense for Krum to have rescued Ron, and of course now it was obvious that Hermione was his hostage, given the events of the Yule Ball. Ron being Harry's hostage was logical too, as they were best friends.

The four of them broke the surface of the water simultaneously, to a loud cheer from the crowd. Ron and Hermione woke a second later, both looking very confused. Ron quickly let go of Krum's hand, although Harry would notice that he refused to wash it for almost a week afterwards. It was Krum, whoever, who spoke first, as soon as his transformation back into a human was complete.

"Vot," he said, as they swam for the dock, "are you playing at? Vere you hoping to confuse me by stealing my hostage? I thought you believed in playing fair here at Hogvorts."

Harry quickly reassured Krum that he hadn't stolen his hostage deliberately, simply that he hadn't seen Ron, and thought that Hermione must have been his own hostage. It was the truth, although it didn't seem to appease Krum, who shook his head and muttered something in Bulgarian.

Hermione and Ron were both shivering, too cold to talk, and they scampered up onto the dock as soon as they arrived. Harry and Krum followed shortly after, the latter pausing only to shoot an angry glare at the former.

There was another loud cheer as Cedric and Cho surfaced, clinging tightly to each other. Harry turned away from the lake, accepting a towel offered by Madam Pomfrey, who turned her attention to Ron and Hermione.

Harry sat down on the dock, his feet dangling in the water, taking deep breaths to get his lungs working again. The Gillyweed had almost worn off before he had surfaced, and he was still out of breath. That wasn't the only thing bothering him, though. What had he been thinking at the bottom of the lake? Krum had good reason to be angry at him; it should have been obvious that Hermione wasn't Harry's hostage to rescue. If Harry had thought about it, he would have looked at the other hostages and seen Ron, and rescued him as he was supposed to have done. There really was no excuse, except that … Harry hadn't been thinking. As soon as he saw Hermione he had rushed to rescue her, and nothing else had registered in his mind.

The large clock behind Harry struck the hour, startling him. He turned just in time to see Fleur Delacour running towards him, speaking so quickly that he couldn't understand a word. Her hair was still dripping as she approached, and he had to fight down a blush when she crouched down beside him, putting a hand on his shoulder to steady herself.

"Sorry?" he said, his mind working sluggishly, as if he was in a slight haze.

" 'Ave you seen her?" she repeated, her accent thicker than usual. "Gabrielle, my little sister - you must 'ave seen her. Is she safe?"

"She was down there with the others," Harry confirmed. He suddenly felt very guilty for having left her there, especially given the merpeople's warning that past an hour the hostages wouldn't come back. But he hadn't known at the time that Fleur wasn't coming to rescue her sister - what had happened to Fleur, he wondered - and he was focused on Hermione.

"I'm sorry - I would have rescued her as well, except I thought you were still coming, and I didn't think I could carry someone else as well as Hermione."

The excuse sounded worse when he said it out loud. He should have at least tried to rescue her. He definitely would have, if he had known how much she meant to Fleur, and how worried Fleur would be when she found out that Gabrielle was still in the lake.

"It was ze grindylows," she said. "Zey got a hold of me, and I simply couldn't- oh!"

She cut off suddenly, jumping up and rushing to the other side of the dock. The merman chief had just surfaced there, and he had Gabrielle with him. There was a hasty sibling reunion, with much rapid-fire French, before Madam Pomfrey pushed her way to the younger sister, a pair of towels in hand.

Harry was relieved that she was safe- he would have felt responsible if something had happened to her. But why would it have been his fault? With Fleur gone, he felt a sudden clarity return to his mind, and now he realized how silly of him it would have been to try to have rescued somebody else's hostage as well as his own. It was a competition, after all, and besides, he couldn't have put Hermione at risk by trying to carry somebody else as well. But then why, just a second ago, had he felt so culpable? He smiled as he realized. He really would have to remember that Fleur was part-Veela, before he made an even more stupid mistake.

He looked back over the rest of the dock, searching for Ron and Hermione, who should have been sufficiently dried off by now for Madam Pomfrey to release them. He saw them standing and talking with the twins, and he made his way over to join them.

"Brilliant, Harry," the left-most twin said. Harry thought he was George, although it was impossible to tell.

"Awesome job," continued the other.

"Just one question though."

"Not that we're complaining, but-"

"Our dear brother is curious-"

"And we kind of are too-"

"Why you left him in the lake-"

"When he was yours to rescue."

Harry glanced over at Ron, who was staring at his right hand, the one that Viktor had been holding.

"To be honest, I never saw you, Ron. Didn't even realize you were there, I was in such a hurry."

Ron looked up.

"It's ok. I'll try not to take it too personally, but don't leave your best mate hanging next time, alright?"

"You'll notice he's not too upset," Hermione said, smiling. She seemed surprisingly happy for somebody who had just spent an hour sleeping under a lake. "He does have this obsession with Viktor, you know."

"You're not too bent out of shape yourself," the even redder-than-usual Weasley replied, glowering at her.

"I'm just glad Harry's ok… What _did_ you use to be able to breathe, by the way? I didn't realize you had found a spell in time."

Harry was about to explain about Dobby and the Gillyweed when he was cut off by Dumbledore's magically amplified voice.

"As many of you are likely aware, two of our champions returned from the lake escorting a hostage that was not assigned to them. After consultation with the merchief, the judges have come to a conclusion regarding how these champions' scores will be affected."

Harry's heart sunk deep into his ribcage, feeling like it was pressing up against his stomach. He had rescued the wrong hostage, which was surely against one of the rules in the tournament's massive rulebook. Percy could probably even tell him which one, if Harry wanted to know. He was going to get a zero, maybe even be disqualified from the entire tournament. At least he wouldn't have to worry about the third task if they kicked him out, he thought hopefully, trying to find some kind of silver lining.

"But first, the scores for our other champions. Miss Delacour failed to retrieve a hostage, as she was overcome by a swarm of Grindylows. She did, however, demonstrate mastery of the Bubble-Head Charm, and so we award her twenty-five points."

There was a smattering of light applause for Fleur, who looked surprised at her score.

"I deserved zero," Harry heard her say under her breath.

"Mr. Diggory was the last of the other three champions to return, five minutes outside of the time limit. He also employed the Bubble-Head Charm, and we award him forty points."

Cedric received a large round of applause, especially from the Hufflepuffs, but he looked displeased with himself.

"And now for Mr. Krum. He returned with Mr. Weasley inside of the time limit, at the same time as Mr. Potter returned with Miss Granger. However, the merchief informed the judges that Mr. Krum would have returned sooner, if not for his confusion upon reaching the bottom of the lake and not seeing Miss Granger. He spent two further minutes searching for her before freeing Mr. Weasley. Since this confusion was not due to his error, we award him first place, and a score of forty-eight points."

The Durmstrang students let out a huge roar in support of Krum, who raised his fist in triumph.

"Finally, we have Mr. Potter. He returned at the same moment as Mr. Krum, and he did not delay at the bottom of the lake, immediately freeing Miss Granger. Most of the judges-"

Dumbledore glanced ever so quickly at Karkaroff.

"- felt that this should not affect his score, as the tournament rules do not specify which hostage each champion must rescue, nor do they outline any penalty for a champion who makes an.. unexpected decision. However, Mr. Potter's score is forty-five points."

Harry felt his heart lift as the spectators cheered, hope flowing back into his body. Forty-five.. that plus what he had in the first task, that would-

"You're in second, Harry!" Hermione yelled over the noise of the crowd, having already done the math.

Second… it was far, far better than Harry had dared to hope for, although he'd have to come from behind in the final task if he wanted to win. Thanks to Karkaroff, he was a full three points behind Krum.

As the applause died away, Krum walked up to Harry, a towel still draped around his shoulders and his face bearing his trademark scowl.

"I vould like a vord," he said.

He sounded less friendly than usual, but Harry supposed that was to be expected.

"About what?" Harry responded.

"I vould prefer if ve could discuss this alone," he said, putting his hand on Harry's shoulder and steering him quickly away from the crowd, towards the forest.

Harry looked back over his shoulder at Ron and Hermione; they were too far away to help already.

"Ve are just going to have a conversation, you and I," Krum said, not relaxing his grip on Harry's shoulder.

"Krum," Harry began, unnerved by the fact that they were now well out of sight of the dock, "if this is about the task-"

"The judges vere fair. I do not care about the task."

"Then why are you-"

"I haff heard much about you. You are not a cheater. So I vill ask you why, if not to cheat, you took a hostage that vos not yours."

Krum had released his grip on Harry, but he was standing no more than a foot away from him, and Harry was suddenly conscious of the fact that he was significantly shorter and lighter than the Bulgarian Seeker.

"It wasn't deliberate," Harry said, honestly. "When I saw Hermione I just assumed she was mine. I didn't even think about anything else. I didn't even realize that Ron was there until…"

Harry trailed off, seeing that Krum was no longer listening. He kicked the ground with his boot, once, twice, kicking up dirt against a nearby tree.

" …didn't even think," he muttered. He shook his head like a dog, his wet, dark hair falling heavily across his forehead. He looked nothing like the Quidditch hero, the incredible, confident Seeker who had almost snatched victory from the Irish. Harry took a small step back, truly scared for the first time.

"I am going to ask you this once," he said, finally looking up at Harry. "Vot is there between you and Herm-own-ninny?"

"Nothing," Harry said quickly, meeting his gaze. "Nothing, Viktor, honestly. We're good friends. That's it. When I saw her in the lake I panicked, because I didn't want her to be in danger, but my reaction would have been the same for Ron."

"If you had seen him," Krum said, his voice low. He sighed, pushing dirt around with his boot, filling in the hole he had made. For a while the only sound was the repetitive scrape of his boot against the ground.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he spoke again.

"I vill take your vord for this."

"It's the truth."

Krum extended a hand, which Harry took, the former's handshake less firm than Harry had expected.

"Good luck with the tournament," he said. "May the best man vin."

And with that Krum was gone, a dark figure moving quickly through the forest back towards the lake.

Harry gave him a head start, still trying to process what had just happened.

There was only one interpretation of that conversation. Krum viewed him as a rival. Not just in the tournament, but… for Hermione. It was ridiculous, of course. Every word that Harry had said to Krum had been true. There was nothing between them.

Harry closed his eyes, letting the quietness of the forest wash over him, trying desperately to think.

What he had said had been true. But if that was the case, then why, when he thought about Hermione, when he remembered that moment when he saw her bound to the lake's rocky bottom, did a spear of something - fear, maybe, he didn't know what - pierce his heart? Why had he been so easily blinded to the presence of his other best friend, who had been floating not ten feet away from him? Would he really have reacted that way to seeing Ron there? After all, he had left Ron, hadn't he. He had seen Ron, albeit later, and he had focussed on getting Hermione to safety first.

He… he didn't know what to think, now. If he had reacted more strongly to the sight of Hermione in danger than that of Ron… he didn't know what that meant.

Sighing, Harry started to walk back through the forest, up towards the castle. No doubt there was a celebratory party awaiting him in Gryffindor Tower, one which he was already late for. He would have to deal with these thoughts later.


	2. The Hogwarts Champion

**A/N: Here's Chapter Two! Once a week or so is going to be my target update frequency, just so you guys know. I still have no clue where this story is going (I've got nothing pre-written or planned), so please let me know what you think about the direction it's taking. Oh, and I know that Lavender isn't supposed to play the role that she does here until sixth year, but I had to take one or two liberties with that timeline. Enjoy!**

The castle seemed eerily empty as Harry walked through it. There were no classes for the rest of the day, and nobody was in the mood to study, so Harry didn't run into anybody as he climbed up the staircase towards Gryffindor Tower. He did pass Mrs. Norris on the fourth floor, but even her suspicious gaze couldn't bring down his spirits.

Against all odds, he had survived the second task. He was two-thirds of the way through the tournament, and in second place at that. There were months before he would have to stare down the third and final task, and Harry found, to his surprise, that the thought of it didn't scare him. If he could conquer the Black Lake, he could tackle anything else that the tournament threw at him.

"Balderdash," Harry said when he arrived at the Fat Lady, who beamed at him.

"Of course, dear."

He stepped through the portrait-hole and was mobbed almost immediately, as all of Gryffindor rushed to congratulate him.

"The Gillyweed was brilliant, Harry," Neville yelled from the crowd, looking as excited as Harry had ever seen him.

"Don't let that biased git Karkaroff get to you," Angelina said. "He's just scared you'll beat his golden boy."

Harry smiled, catching the open butterbeer that Fred tossed to him.

"To the Hogwarts Champion!" Lee Jordan shouted above the noise, raising a miraculously full bottle towards Harry.

The crowd echoed the toast, all eyes on its recipient.

They had all noticed the slight to Cedric, surely. It bothered Harry slightly, given that he owed Cedric for his help, almost as much as he owed Dobby. Then again, he was sure that all the toasts in the Hufflepuff Common Room were being proposed by proud bearers of "Potter Stinks" badges, so he figured that made him and Cedric even.

The next few hours passed in a loud, colourful blur, no doubt aided slightly by the butterbeer. Harry spent most of the time telling the story of what had happened at the bottom of the lake to various groups, and despite his best efforts, he embellished it just a little bit more each time.

At least he wasn't as bad as Ron, who at one point told Lavender that he had awoken early from Dumbledore's charm, found himself unable to breathe, ripped free of his own bonds, saved Krum's life by slugging a trio of mermen who had the Bulgarian pinned down, and managed to pull both of them to the surface just as his air ran out.

Harry had barely managed to contain a snort when he had heard that version of events, but it seemed to be working for Ron, who was now retelling the story to a steadily increasing group of girls.

As dinner approached, the party spilled out into the corridor, butterbeers reluctantly left behind.

The group ran into a contingent of Ravenclaws on the way down the staircase, most of whom, to Harry's surprise, congratulated him on his success, as well as offering a few choice words about Karkaroff.

"They seem to have changed their tune," Ron muttered to Harry after they had gone.

Harry nodded absently. He hadn't realized how hungry he was until he saw the tables in the Great Hall, which were covered with the usual assortment of meats and side dishes. The task must have taken more out of him than he had realized.

The Gryffindors seemed to be the last to arrive, and the meal was already well underway. The Slytherin table, which also held the Durmstrang students, was by far the loudest. Draco had managed to weasel himself into the spot right next to Krum, an arrangement which the latter didn't seem particularly happy about.

Harry took a seat between Ron and Ginny, quickly reaching to serve himself generous portions of chicken and potatoes.

"You're almost keeping pace with Ron today," Ginny commented a couple of minutes later, as he was about to take thirds.

"He earned it," Seamus said from a couple seats down the table. "Bloody brilliant performance earlier."

"Not as brilliant as Ron's," Hermione said slyly. "Harry might have swam down to the bottom of the Black Lake to rescue me, but Ron fought off all those heavily armed mermen and then dragged poor helpless Viktor to the surface by himself."

This time Harry and Ginny both laughed, the former grateful that there wasn't any food in his mouth at the moment.

"Bet you're glad I did," Ron said, his face turning red as he scraped some more rice on to his plate. "I don't know how you could possibly survive without your precious Vicky."

Now it was Hermione's turn to look down, trying to hide her blush.

"About as well as you'd survive without Lavender, I expect," Harry retorted, finding the matching shades of red on his best friends' faces highly amusing. But deep down inside him, something twitched in his stomach, and he found that he had lost his appetite.

"Oh, Ron…" Ginny imitated, putting her hand on Harry's arm and gazing into his eyes, "tell me again about how you single-handedly saved the lives of all four hostages, while still having the time to be so ruggedly handsome."

"We should all chip in and buy Lavender some glasses for her birthday." Harry said, earning a jab in the ribs from Ron and distinctly un-ladylike snorts from Hermione and Ginny.

"I don't think you've got too much right to poke fun," Ron deflected. "You haven't exactly been rolling in success yourself lately."

Harry almost glanced over at the Ravenclaw table, out of reflex, but stopped himself. There was no point in pretending that that battle hadn't been lost.

"Just forget about her, Harry," Ginny said. "You're a Triwizard Champion after all.. I'm sure there are plenty of other girls out there."

"You were complaining just a few weeks ago about how three different girls asked you to the Ball," Seamus said. "Seems to me that's the place you should start."

"One of them was twelve," Harry muttered, "and the other two were hardly the cream of the crop."

"What was wrong with them?"

"The first was about six feet tall," Harry said, "so imagine me trying to dance with her. The other was… I don't know. Just not my type."

"So you do have a type, then," Ginny said, leaning slightly closer to him. "Care to elaborate?"

The others all stopped eating, putting their forks and knives down. It was probably just Harry's imagination, but he could have sworn they leaned in as well, as if to hear better.

"Why do you care so much?" he asked, trying to deflect the question.

"Like Ginny said, you're a Triwizard Champion, mate." Ron said. "And the Boy Who Lived, and you've slain a Basilisk. We could make a killing selling this information to second-year girls."

Hermione rolled her eyes. "You've got no shame, do you, Ron?"

He shrugged. "Could use the money. Don't worry, Harry," he added hastily, "I'd only sell it to the relatively good-looking ones."

"They're twelve, Ron," Harry said. "Thanks, but… definitely no thanks."

Truth be told, Harry hadn't ever thought about his 'type'. He had no clue if he even had one. At any rate, he was quite relieved when dessert arrived and the topic was forgotten.

"We should go to see Snuffles soon," Hermione said quietly to him at one point, while the others were occupied with treacle tart. "I'm sure he'd want to hear from you about the second task."

Harry nodded. "The three of us can head over there on the weekend. He could probably use some more food too. I hate to think of him having to eat rats. Although maybe he enjoys killing them, given everything that happened with Wormtail."

"He probably does. I can't say that I would blame him, either. Snuffles is the one who suffered for all of the horrible things that Wormtail did. And even now he's free, he's still out there somewhere, doing God knows what."

Harry shrugged. "It doesn't matter. He showed up for long enough that we learned the truth about Snuffles."

Oddly enough, it was the reappearance of Pettigrew, the vicious, self-serving, murderous traitor that had taken Harry's parents from him, that had given Harry back his godfather. Harry hated him, more than almost anyone, but Pettigrew had proven he was nothing more than a coward. He was probably hiding somewhere deep in the wilderness, scared to death that Sirius or Lupin would come looking for him. Harry was more than happy to let him live in perpetual fear. He had Sirius back, and that was all that mattered.

Harry spent the evening in the Gryffindor Common Room playing a trio of especially violent wizarding chess games with Ron. Through a few rare moments of insight on Harry's part (and Lavender resting her head on Ron's shoulder, watching him play and doing an excellent job of distracting him) he managed to win the first game, but was soundly thrashed in the last two.

By the end of the games the room had started to thin out, with most of Harry's housemates exhausted from the party earlier. Ron went up to bed after the final checkmate, but Harry didn't join him. His head was still spinning from the day's events, and he could still feel the tiniest amount of residual adrenaline in his veins when he thought about the lake. He doubted he'd be able to sleep for a while yet.

Lavender went up just after Ron did, meaning that Hermione and Ginny were the only others left in the common room. The latter spent most of the next few minutes propped up on the sofa, yawning, before finally caving in and standing up, her back cracking as she stretched.

"I think I'm going to call it a night," Ginny said, walking over to the stairs. "G'night, Harry."

"Good night, Ginny."

Hermione didn't seem to notice Ginny's departure; she sat in the armchair farthest from the fire, deeply engrossed in a thick tome. Harry couldn't quite see the cover from where he was, but it must have been a complicated read, as she went several minutes between turning pages.

Harry watched her as she read, fascinated by how completely the book captured her attention. Her facial expression changed almost constantly as her eyes moved down a page, as if every line altered her opinion of what she had just read. Sometimes she would raise an eyebrow, her eyes moving more quickly for a time, as if she was worried that whatever had caught her attention on the page would disappear if she didn't hurry to catch it. Other times she would curl her bottom lip into a frown, flipping two or three pages in rapid, forceful succession, as if she was frustrated with the book for not containing what she had hoped. After a little while he could predict with surprising accuracy exactly when she'd turn the page, based solely on the precise position of her left eyebrow or the angle of her lips.

She seemed to have an inexhaustible reserve of energy - if anything the pace of her reading increased during the ten minutes or so that he watched - and soon he found himself growing tired.

He got up from his chair as quietly as he could, not wanting to disturb her, but she looked up almost immediately.

"Where did everybody go?" she asked him, looking around at the empty common room.

"They're sleeping. It's half past midnight, Hermione."

"Is it already?" she asked, stifling a yawn. "I guess I lost track of time."

"What were you reading?"

"Standard Book of Spells, Grade 7. I've been getting a head start on reading through it over the last few weeks, so if you need something specific for the third task we'll have a better chance of finding it."

"You really don't have to do that," Harry said. Now that she was looking at him he could see the faint bags underneath her eyes. He knew she didn't sleep much - she was almost always still reading when he went to bed - but he hadn't realized that it was because she was doing research for him.

"In a couple of months you're going to be facing something again." Hermione replied matter-of-factly. "Probably something even scarier than the Horntail and the lake combined. I'm not letting you do that unprepared."

"I really appreciate your help, Hermione. But… head up soon, ok? You look like you're going to fall asleep in that chair any moment."

She shrugged. "That's what I do half the time anyway. You get used to it."

"Maybe. Beds are more comfortable though," Harry replied, fighting off a yawn of his own. "Speaking of which, I'm going to go get some sleep. See you tomorrow, Hermione."

Harry was halfway up the stairs when she spoke.

"Can I just ask you something quickly? I don't mean to keep you up, but I don't want to leave it until the morning."

He turned back, slightly irritated.

"What is it?" he asked, walking back down to the common-room.

"What happened when Viktor dragged you off into the forest? He wasn't his usual self when he came back."

Harry sighed, walking over to the chair opposite Hermione and sitting down. He should have known that this was coming.

"He asked me why I had rescued you from the bottom of the lake instead of Ron. I told him the truth, the same truth that I told Ron and Ginny and everybody else who's asked me: I saw you first, assumed you were my hostage, and didn't even see Ron until afterward."

"He believed you, right? I mean, he couldn't honestly think you were trying to cheat, that would be ridiculous, no matter what he said when you first surfaced, and besides, he got the most points for the task in the end, thanks to Karkaroff, so he really-"

"Hermione," Harry said gently, cutting off her increasingly fast ramble, "Me and Viktor are fine. He believed me. He said he didn't think I was a cheater."

She nodded, somewhat calmer. "He asked me to visit him over the summer. In Bulgaria."

Harry drummed his fingers against the arms of the chair, trying to keep himself awake. He wasn't sure what she wanted him to say.

"I told him I'd have to think about it," she continued. "He said he figured that that was what I would say."

Harry was silent. He really wasn't in the mood for relationship counselling. He glanced up at the clock. It was almost one.

"He just seemed… sullen. More so than usual. I wish I knew why, so I could help him, but you know Viktor, he's not talkative even at the best of times."

"He was probably just tired," Harry offered half-heartedly. "I'm sure he'll bounce back tomorrow."

That wasn't the truth. Harry knew exactly why Krum wasn't in a good mood. He knew exactly what Krum was shadowboxing against. He still thought Harry was a threat, despite Harry's best efforts to convince him otherwise.

"I hope so. And thanks, Harry. That helps."

"You just spent hours looking up spells that might save my life in June. It's the least I can do."

Harry knew he should probably go to his dorm, but the chair was surprisingly comfortable, and it was warm by the fire, and his muscles protested at the thought of standing up and walking up the cold stone steps to his bed. He lifted his stocking feet up onto the edge of the chair, nestling his head in the corner between the back and the arm.

"You were right," he said quietly. "This really isn't that bad."

Hermione's only response was the sound of her breathing, which had deepened slightly. He glanced over his shoulder to see her curled up in the armchair, eyes closed, using the book's soft leather cover as a makeshift pillow.

As tired as he was, Harry lay awake for a few minutes longer, Ginny's question from dinner choosing that moment to rush back to him.

" _So you do have a type then. Care to elaborate?"_

He had shrugged off the question not only because he didn't feel like sharing an answer with the entire table, but because he didn't know how to answer it in the first place.

But there was an answer, he knew that. Whatever you wanted to call it, everyone has some set of qualities that they search for, even if they're not conscious of it.

Harry knew he was dealing with a sample size of one, which didn't make this kind of introspection easy, but it was worth a try. What had attracted him to Cho in the first place? She was very pretty, of course, but that wasn't the most useful adjective for his purposes.

When they had played against each other in third-year, she hadn't tried to find the Snitch on her own. She was an excellent flyer, but they had both known he was better, and with him on a Firebolt, she had had next to no chance to beat him to the Snitch in the conventional manner. She had chosen instead to tail him for most of the match, blocking him where she could, trying to keep him off of his game, to distract him enough so that at a critical moment she could slip by him to capture the Snitch, and it had almost worked.

It was a brilliant plan, one that wouldn't have come from anybody but a Ravenclaw. It was risky, as well, because she would end up looking foolish if it failed, which it had. She hadn't been afraid of that. She'd been willing to take that risk for her teammates.

Harry's head was still spinning, his tiredness turning his thoughts in circles, but he forced himself to focus. Cho had had the intelligence to think of the unorthodox plan, and the loyalty to her team, as well as the courage, to attempt it.

Intelligence. Loyalty. Courage.

Sitting across from Harry, still sleeping peacefully, was Hermione Granger.

Intelligent. Loyal. Courageous.

It was a coincidence. It had to be. All that meant was that he valued those traits in friends as well. He didn't feel anything else for Hermione, he couldn't feel anything else for her. He couldn't, no matter how much adrenaline had surged through him when he had seen her at the bottom of the lake, no matter how overwhelming the fear of losing her had been.

She was one of his best friends, that was it. Nothing more, nothing less.

But as Harry tried desperately to sleep, one final thought stayed in his head. At the Yule Ball, many people, including Ron, had remarked to him, surprise evident in their voices, that Hermione was exceedingly pretty.

When he had seen her, though, walking down the stairs to the Great Hall, simultaneously nervous and excited, Harry had been entirely unsurprised by her appearance.

As the clock ticked to one-thirty and all else was quiet in the castle, the black tide of sleep finally crashed over Harry, washing his thoughts away.


	3. Skeeter's Scoop

**A/N: So here we are, at the start of Chapter Three. This chapter (and most likely the subsequent one) will be from Hermione's POV, so that I can tell both sides of the story. I also think I've finally figured out exactly where I want this story to go, so things are looking up. As always I appreciate feedback, the negative even more than the positive, so please keep it coming. Enjoy!**

The crack of dawn light seeping through the windows of the common-room was enough to wake Hermione. She had slept later than usual - it was almost seven already - but she was still exhausted.

Harry, she noted with amusement, despite all of his talk about how uncomfortable chairs were, was still asleep in one, his eyelids twitching as he dreamed. She got up quietly, as not to wake him, and slipped up the stairs to her dormitory. The other girls were still sound asleep, so Hermione got changed quickly, doing her best not to disturb them.

She was running very late, but she still had almost an hour before breakfast to practice her Colour-Changing Charm. Professor McGonagall had just introduced it yesterday, but by the end of class Hermione could only get it to work seven times out of ten, and the final colour was usually off by a shade or two, so she really should put some good hard work into it today.

She knew she would be the only one of her class worrying about the charm today, which McGonagall had said was one of the most complex ones they would learn this year, and which she didn't expect them to be able to perform successfully for a week or so, but in her mind, the sooner she mastered it the sooner she could move on.

She stopped by the Great Hall, which was on the way to the practice rooms, to pick up a piece of fruit to use for the charm. She was rummaging through one of the fruit bowls, looking for an orange (they were supposed to be the most difficult to change) when an owl swooped past her left shoulder, dropping a package on the table.

She could tell from the gaudy colours and swirling font that it was somebody's _Witch Weekly_ subscription, which she normally wouldn't even glance at, but the headline caught her eye.

'Triwizard Love Triangle,' it read. Below that, in slightly smaller font: 'Why Harry Potter and Viktor Krum are rivals for more than the Triwizard Cup. More inside, from acclaimed journalist Rita Skeeter.'

The cover showed a picture of Harry, Hermione, Viktor and Ron just after the four of them surfaced from the lake, only Ron had been cut out of the picture, leaving Viktor glaring at the other two.

Hermione scowled loudly, startling Nearly-Headless Nick, who swerved halfway into a wall out of surprise.

"Morning, Miss Granger," he said, but Hermione was too busy flipping through the magazine to respond.

She had a sinking feeling she knew exactly what Rita was up to this time, although how Rita could have known about any of it she really didn't- there it was, page 44.

 _A boy with a talent for victory against the toughest of odds may finally have found a battle he cannot win, writes Rita Skeeter. Harry Potter's success in the second task of the Triwizard Tournament yesterday was overshadowed by his choice not to rescue his own hostage, his friend Ronald Weaselbee, but instead his other close friend Hermione Granger, the assigned hostage and Yule Ball date of the famed Bulgarian Seeker Viktor Krum. In fact, Mr Krum seemed to wish to strengthen his relationship with Miss Granger, finding a moment after the task to invite her to visit him over the summer. Miss Granger said she needed time to think, a response that will no doubt prove to be telling in the context of what happened next. After the scores for the task were announced, Mr Potter and Mr Krum were seen walking into the forest, alone, to discuss the incident. The Bulgarian didn't go so far as to accuse Mr Potter of cheating, but he did ask why the youngest champion chose to rescue Miss Granger instead of his friend, Ronald Wheezy. When Mr Potter provided an answer that was evasive at best, he was pressed by the Durmstrang champion, who asked him exactly what there was between himself and Miss Granger. Potter denied any romantic involvement with Miss Granger, but Mr Krum appeared less than convinced by this answer. The two finally parted with a handshake, at which point Mr Krum said to his rival, "may the best man win". Now he may have been talking about the tournament, but this reporter thinks the 17-year old Bulgarian was referring to an entirely different competition - one for the attentions of the suddenly popular Miss Granger. With the third task of the tournament rapidly approaching, the stakes seem to have been raised yet again for two of our four champions. More to come next week on the ongoing development of this saga._

Hermione pushed the article away in disgust. Rita Skeeter had absolutely no shame, no sense of journalistic ethics whatsoever, hardly even any morals it seemed. She would write anything so long as she thought it would sell well.

She wasn't inclined to believe anything that came from Rita's quill, and this article was even less credible than usual. There was no love triangle at the tournament, and certainly not one involving her.

But even Rita wouldn't dare write something that didn't have at least some minuscule kernel of fact hidden away in it. Judging from the article, she had not only known that Harry and Viktor had talked, but she had some idea - no matter how much she had twisted it for her purposes - of what they had talked about. She even quoted Viktor at one point, so it seemed likely that she had found some way to eavesdrop upon their conversation.

She had known about Viktor inviting her to Bulgaria as well, which certainly shouldn't be possible.

Yet Dumbledore had had the good sense to ban Rita from the grounds after the first task, and if any of the professors had seen her wandering around she would have been unceremoniously thrown out. She must have snuck in somehow without being seen. She couldn't have used an invisibility cloak, or Moody would have seen her. A Disillusionment Charm might have worked, but if she was moving around through busy areas somebody would either have noticed the shimmer that the charm left in the air or simply bumped into her.

Polyjuice Potion seemed possible.. she could have disguised herself as somebody else, somebody who was entitled to enter the grounds, but then Harry and Viktor would have seen her when they talked in the forest.

Hermione started walking towards the library, suddenly determined to figure out how Rita was obtaining her scoops - no doubt it was some highly illegal method - and to put an end to it. She didn't have the time to deal with any more trashy, misleading articles.

Hermione dropped her bags in the corner chair where she always sat, before looking through the spells section of the library. She remembered seeing a book here back a few years ago; she couldn't recall the title, but it had discussed magical methods of concealing oneself. It was the book in which she had first come across a mention of Polyjuice Potion, although she had had to spend a significant amount of time after that attempting to find a book that detailed how to prepare it.

It had been a thin book, with golden writing on a dark navy spine - she remembered that much, and it didn't take her long to find it on a shelf.

 _Magical Methods of Concealment_ , the title read. Well that was obvious enough.

She flipped to the table of contents - each chapter of the book was devoted to a different charm, spell or potion. She scanned through the list; most of the methods she recognized, and had already ruled out. There were one or two that she hadn't heard of, and she made a mental note to look them up later, but the item that caught her attention was the very last one: Self-Transfiguration (Animagus etc.)

Something clicked in Hermione's mind. There had been a water beetle in her hair when she emerged from the lake. Viktor had taken it out, but it could easily have crawled onto him without him realizing. It could have still been on him when he and Harry had talked later on.

If Rita could transform herself into a beetle… if she was an Animagus… it would explain how she was always hearing things that she shouldn't have been able to hear, how she always snuck into places where she wasn't allowed.

It was exactly what Hermione had been hoping for; she had memorized the short list of registered Animagi in the United Kingdom, and Rita wasn't one of them. If she was an Animagus, and wasn't registered, then she could face time in Azkaban if proof found its way to the proper authorities.

The only question was whether it was even possible to have a beetle as one's Animagus form to begin with. All of the Animagi that Hermione had read about transformed into reasonably large animals: dogs, cats, deer, that sort of thing. Something the size of a beetle was unheard of, but that didn't mean it wasn't possible. She just had to find a book on the Animagus transformation; no doubt it would contain a section that discussed how a wizard or witch's Animagus form was determined.

That would have to wait for later though, as it was almost nine o'clock, and Harry and Ron would be worried if she wasn't in the Great Hall for breakfast.

When she slipped into her usual seat at the Great Hall, exchanging good mornings with Harry and Ron, the latter had picked up the _Witch Weekly_ article and was reading it, the expression on his face growing more and more concerned as he did.

"You've got water on your glasses, by the way," she said to Harry, who had somehow managed to get a few droplets on the frame.

"That would be from Ron's idea of a gentle way to wake me up," he replied, wiping them on his sleeve. "First time I've seen him use _Aguamenti_ properly."

"Tried everything else first," Ron muttered, approaching the bottom of the article. Finally he finished it, giving Hermione an incredulous look.

She cut him off before he could even ask. "It's just Rita being Rita. Trying to sell herself by making up sensational nonsense, as per usual."

"Have you read this yet, Harry?" he asked.

Harry shook his head, taking the article from Ron.

"What I don't get is how she knows anything about what happened," Ron said to her, his breakfast temporarily forgotten. "Dumbledore banned her from the grounds, didn't he?"

"I think I might know how she's doing it. And if I'm right, that article will be the last one she writes about any of us."

Harry frowned as he finished the article, giving it back to Hermione.

"Rita's losing her touch," he commented, putting another piece of french toast on his plate. "Given her usual talent for inventiveness, I was expecting an account of how Viktor and I duelled to the death over the fatherhood of your unborn child."

"Very funny," Hermione snapped. "This is bad enough, don't you think? Now everybody who reads this is going to think you and Viktor have it out for each other, and that I'm some kind of… I don't even know."

"Scarlet woman?" Ron offered, more seriously than he should have.

"You always know just what to say, don't you. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to the library to put an end to this."

"We've got Potions in ten minutes, Hermione," Harry said, unnecessarily.

"I know. Take notes for me, will you. And good ones, not the ones you take when you know I'll lend you mine."

With that she got up from the table, grabbed her bag, and walked away, leaving her breakfast barely half-eaten.

"It's not like anybody reads that rag anyway," Ron said to Harry as she left. "I mean, it's only middle-aged witches with nothing better to do."

"Your mother has a subscription," Harry reminded him. "And Parvati, and Lavender, and probably half the girls in the castle."

Hermione was glad when she was far enough away that she couldn't hear their conversation anymore. When she left the Great Hall and found a deserted hallway she leaned against the wall, and forced herself to take three deep breaths. She didn't get truly angry often, but she knew from experience that if she didn't take the time to calm herself down she'd walk around yelling at people all day.

It was just so vicious of Rita. Even more so than usual. The whole thing had been resolved perfectly between Harry and Viktor, the latter had understood that there was nothing between her and Harry, but now this would get the whole castle talking about it, and no doubt rumours would spread, and Viktor might start questioning what Harry had told him, and that couldn't possibly end well for any of them.

It made Harry look horrible too, like Harry was trying to steal her from Viktor, even though, in her mind, she hadn't exactly been "claimed".

She didn't know what to think about Viktor. He was tall, and dark-haired, and a superb athlete, and nice enough, if a little taciturn. She had enjoyed their kiss, and there were plenty of things she liked about him, but… well… he was three years older than her. They didn't have all that much in common either, besides the occasional mutual desire to get away from other people.

He had been a wonderful Yule Ball date, if not her first choice, and she would do it all again in a heartbeat, but she wasn't sure how well he was suited to mean anything more than that to her. She couldn't visit him in Bulgaria, she had known that already, as soon as he had asked her, but she'd wanted to spare his feelings. It was much too big of a step, and a long trip as well, which would no doubt get her parents asking all sorts of worried parental questions that she had no desire to deal with.

Hermione sighed. She'd been putting off talking to Viktor, but now, especially given that the article had come out, she should really go find him. She would talk to him after she finished at the library, she promised herself. Taking care of Rita was the top priority.

Madam Pince seemed entirely unsurprised to see her entering the library for the second time in as many hours.

"I'm looking for a book detailing the Animagus transformation," Hermione said to her. She could probably have found it herself, but that would have taken longer, and she didn't want to waste time.

Madam Pince didn't even bat an eyelash at the request. "If you're thinking about attempting to develop the transformation ability, I would recommend talking with Professor McGonagall first."

"It's purely for academic purposes. Even I'm not crazy enough to try to become an Animagus while still in school."

Madam Pince didn't laugh. "Third shelf from the back, on your left, just below eye level."

Hermione thanked her, before walking over to the indicated shelf. There was, much to her surprise, only one book on the shelf, but it was massive, easily bigger than any that Hermione had seen before. It took up the whole shelf by itself, and Hermione, after looking around to make sure Madam Pince wasn't watching, had to use a Levitation Charm to move it over to a reading table.

When she opened the front cover a cloud of dust blew into her face, causing her to cough. By the looks of it, the book hadn't been touched for a good fifty or sixty years - maybe not even since Professor McGonagall had first started considering becoming an Animagus herself.

Thankfully the back of the book contained a detailed index, and it didn't take Hermione long to find the page that she needed.

 _A witch or wizard's Animagus form cannot be chosen; it is an innate quality that is fixed from birth, and generally based upon one's personality. For those who may fear going through the immensely complicated process to become an Animagus, only to find that their animal form is highly undesirable, consider that one's Animagus form generally corresponds to the form of one's corporeal Patronus. It is also worth noting that, while most recorded animal forms tend to be of either birds or large mammals, there is no reason that either the size or the type of animal should be any constraint on potential forms._

So it was possible, then. Rita was an Animagus, with the ability to change her shape into that of a water beetle. Hermione was sure of it. A plan started forming in her head, a devious, vengeful, satisfying plan that would make sure Rita's Quick-Quotes Quill never touched parchment again.

Hermione walked out of the library, forgetting to put the book back, her mind spinning as she figured out what she would need. A glass jar, a lid with a few air holes, a leaf of lettuce, and some way to allow beetle-Rita to show that she understood Hermione's terms.

Hermione couldn't help but smile as she walked down the hallway, the grin on her face causing first-years to give her a wide berth. Things were looking up.


	4. Seeing is Believing

**A/N: Yea, I know it's been a while... but I'm going to try to get back on track with updates. A huge thanks to a friend of mine (she knows who she is) who read way too many drafts of this chapter and was invaluable when it came to getting both Viktor and Ron's dialogue as good as possible. Enjoy Chapter Four, and let me know what you think!**

Hermione was never sure where to find Viktor. So far as she could tell he didn't keep to any kind of regular routine, and he would end up in the oddest of places. More than once she had combed the entire beach, where he walked occasionally, only to find him walking out of the forest, covered in mud almost up to his knees. He had probably explored it, in his few months here, more thoroughly than anybody at Hogwarts had.

He had told her once, in a rare moment of humour, that he explored so much because he "vos a Seeker, and a Seeker can never stop Seeking".

She knew perfectly well why he did it. It was for the same reason that Harry would sometimes walk the halls late at night under the protection of his cloak. They needed to get away from people. They were two of the most famous wizards of their age in the world, and wherever they went, for whatever reason, they attracted at best curious whispers, and at worst the unrelenting camera of Colin Creevey.

So Hermione was surprised, as she walked down from the castle towards the beach, to spot Krum almost immediately, standing by the bow of the Durmstrang ship, in the middle of a small crowd of his classmates, talking animatedly.

She didn't want to interrupt them, so she started to walk down the beach, away from the ship, figuring that she would do a lap of the lake. It might be useful, anyway. She had spent most of the walk down thinking about exactly how she wanted this conversation to go, but it wouldn't hurt to run it through in her head a few more times.

She'd start with small talk, some kind of stupidly idle comment about how sunny it had been lately. He would nod, or shrug, or something else vaguely non-committal. She knew he would be able to tell where she was going, what she was going to say, and he'd do his absolute best not to let it show, but she knew it would hurt him. It would hurt her too, to hurt him, but what other choice did she have? She cared about him, but the longer this kept going, the longer he thought that she cared more than she did, as much as he did, the more it would hurt. For both of them.

She would be gracious. Tactful. Just distant enough to make sure he wouldn't read anything the wrong way, but close enough to be compassionate, understanding. She would do everything that she could, but nothing could change the fact that she'd be driving a hot dagger up under his rib cage, through bone and muscle and tendons like they were nothing like paper, until the searing streak of pain pierced his heart.

She knew the feeling much too well. She still felt it every time she met those green eyes, those eyes that somehow filled her with both pain and life. But that wasn't his fault. He hadn't done anything wrong, he hadn't even known, but that hadn't changed how it had felt - how it continued to feel, even now.

And now she was going to subject Viktor to - not the same fate, she was sure, her ego wasn't big enough to think that - but some slice, some portion, however small, of the pain that she had experienced. She felt bile trying to rise in the back of her throat, but she forced it down. This wasn't her fault, or anybody's fault for that matter. There wasn't really anything she could have done.

She was more than halfway around the lake now, walking ever more quickly as her anxiety swelled, and soon she saw the dark shape growing as it came towards her.

She took three deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. She could do this. She had to do this. There was no avoiding it.

"Nice day, isn't it?" she said, coming to a stop a few feet away from him.

He shrugged. "Ven you're used to five feet of snow, almost everything is nice."

"I didn't mean to tear you away from your conversation," she said, trying to keep her voice from wavering too much.

"It's ok. They didn't have much to say."

There was silence for a moment, as she tried to find her place in the script. "I was expecting to find you out in the forest somewhere, fighting your way through a swarm of Acromantula."

"The Acromantula vere only vonce," he replied, the tiniest hint of humour in his voice. "Usually I valk a bit deeper, vere the Basilisks are."

Hermione swallowed, suddenly unsure how to approach this, despite all of her rehearsal. It was easy to say things in your own mind, where nobody could hear you, but it was an entirely different matter to say them to somebody who you knew would be hurt.

She bit the bullet.

"Viktor, I'm flattered that you invited me to spend some time with you in Bulgaria over the summer."

No that wasn't right. That sounded horribly horribly wrong. Her voice was flat, as if she was reading off of a teleprompter, and she sounded... she didn't even know how she sounded, but it wasn't right.

"But you von't be able to accept my offer," Viktor said, finishing her thought.

"It's not because of - I mean, it's not anything personal, but-"

She was starting to panic a little bit now, her breaths coming ever more rapidly, but thankfully Viktor took pity on her, cutting her off.

"I'm sure you haff your reasons," he said, and maybe it was just her imagination, or else a trick of the light, but for a split second it looked like the corner of his mouth twitched upward into a slight smile.

She nodded, grateful that he wasn't going to press her to explain herself, because she was pretty confident that she wouldn't be able to. She couldn't really put it into words, couldn't even put it all together in her own mind, but she knew that spending the summer with Viktor had never been an option.

"Good luck," he said, and now she was sure he was smiling, and there was a mischievous gleam in his eye as if he knew something that he wasn't telling her. "You don't need it, but I vill vish it to you anyway."

And then he turned away swiftly, the back of his robe swirling up briefly into the air before gravity caught up to it.

"Good luck with what?" she called out, but even though he was still close enough to hear her, he didn't respond.

He probably had his reasons.

She stood by the lake for a few minutes longer, watching as ripples would form in the water, spreading out as they moved, each following the same path as the last, until eventually each one would crash into the unforgiving shore and cease to be.

She didn't feel anywhere near as bad as she had thought she would. He had known what she was going to say, that much was obvious, and maybe that had helped him handle it as calmly as he had. Calm wasn't even the right word; he seemed, if not happy, then oddly satisfied with how things were developing.

And he had hinted at something, she had no idea what, but something that he seemed to know that she didn't. He had acted as if he had known her reasoning, even though she herself found it inscrutable. It was infuriating. She almost wanted to chase him down and drag the answers out of him, to have him explain to her this apparently obvious thing that she didn't understand.

He'd be fine, though, she was sure of that. Going in, she had thought that he'd need the tournament, that it would demand all of his attention for the next month or so, and without his even realizing she would gradually vanish from his mind, but now that seemed a naïve thought. She was already gone from his mind. She had been mistaken in her assessment of him, that much had become clear. He wouldn't need any distraction to forget about her.

She would, though. That was her problem. She was never distracted enough, and that was why the one topic that she didn't want to think about, the one topic that she knew was a lost cause, was one that seemed everpresent in her thoughts.

She had thought - just for the briefest of moments, a stupid, hormone-induced thought - when she had looked up from the previous night and seen his emerald eyes watching her, that there might have been something there. But there wasn't. Never had been, never would be.

She might have scolded Ron and Ginny at dinner when they had asked about Harry's 'type', but not because her curiousity was any less than theirs. It was just that she already knew the answer. His type was girls like Cho, girls who were tall, pretty and athletic.

Three things that she would never be.

Hermione forced herself away from the lake, walking slowly uphill towards the castle. She had to distract herself. She had become very good at using books and schoolwork to push him to the very back of her mind, but he never completely left.

Maybe plotting the demise of Rita Skeeter's career would help.

She could feel her frustration building as she walked through the Gryffindor Common Room, giving nothing but a cursory nod to the pair of third-years who greeted her. She had made the mistake of helping them with a particularly nasty potions essay the week before, and now they wouldn't leave her alone.

She walked quickly up the stairs to the dorm, closing the door firmly behind her. She rummaged through the trunk at the foot of her bed, looking for one of the jars of tooth-friendly nuts her parents had given her for Christmas. She had an empty one, fortunately (she had a weakness for pistachios, so that jar hadn't lasted long), and it looked to be just about the right size.

" _Diffindo"_ , she murmured, moving the tip of her wand carefully over the jar's lid, creating a handful of evenly spaced pinholes in the plastic.

She was admiring her handiwork when she caught sight of her watch for the first time since the morning. She had thought that she had plenty of time still, but she was already three minutes late for Care of Magical Creatures. She must have spent more time by the lake than she had realized.

Harry and Ron were probably still wondering why she had skipped Potions in the morning, and their concerns would be redoubled if she didn't show up for one of their favourite classes.

She quickly packed up her bag, making sure to take the jar with her. When she arrived at the field by Hagrid's hut two minutes later, out of breath from running, a concerned-looking Hagrid handed her a dog-sized creature with an exceptionally thin but mobile snout.

It was a Niffler, he explained, and excelled at digging up buried treasure. All she had to do was set it loose and watch it work.

She carefully took the Niffler from Hagrid, trying to smile reassuringly, and walked over to Harry and Ron, who were both standing with an armful of gold coins.

She tossed the glass jar to Ron, who caught it awkwardly, dropping a few coins in the process.

"And this is?" he asked, turning it over in his hand.

"Rita Skeeter's new home," she replied. "A little bit roomier than necessary, but we'll want her to be nice and cooperative, won't we."

Ron furrowed his eyebrows, confused, but as Hermione watched Harry she could see the exact moment when his brain clicked together the pieces of the puzzle.

"She's an Animagus," he said, lowering his voice as Malfoy passed behind them. "Something small and inconspicuous. Probably an insect. It explains how she's constantly in places that she shouldn't be able to reach."

"Water beetle," Hermione confirmed. "And now that we know this, silencing her quill will be a simple matter of waiting for her to show her face - or her antennae, as it were - and slipping her in here until she smartens up."

"Bloody brilliant," Ron said, handing the jar back to her.

"Thanks. It should be one less thing to worry about, at least."

They stood, watching the Nifflers retrieve treasure at an impressive pace, for a few minutes before Harry broke the silence.

"What aren't you telling us, Hermione?"

"About Rita? Nothing."

He shook his head, his eyes boring into hers. "You missed Potions this morning. The only times you've ever missed classes before were in second year, when you were Petrified, and last year, when you had burned yourself out with the Time-Turner. I don't believe that you would ever miss one voluntarily, and especially not for something as comparatively minor as quieting Rita."

The cruel thing with Harry was that he always knew. He could always tell when something was bothering her. She could hide it from Ron, from Ginny, from anybody else who she ran into, but not from him. It worked the other way around, too. It was all too often that he was troubled by something, and every time she knew that he wasn't right. She could even find him under the Invisibility Cloak.

He knew how to make her feel better, too, but that was exactly why she still hid things from him. Whenever that happened, whenever they talked about the various things that bothered them - either of them - and they debated and laughed and smiled she could feel the barriers that she had built to protect herself being overcome by a flood of emotions. She needed to keep them contained, because those feelings were the one thing - the only thing - that she had ever been able to hide from him, and if she failed in that regard, she would lose everything that they had.

She wasn't able to hide her feelings from him because they weren't strong, or because she had the self-control to avoid showing them - they were just as evident, she was sure, as every other emotion that she felt - but because he couldn't possibly conceive of her having them. He had never thought of her in any way besides a friend, and he was sure that she felt the same way, so the truth had never even come close to crossing his mind.

It was ironic, that someone who saw so much could miss the most obvious thing of all.

"You don't even seem particularly happy about finally quashing Rita, which is something you'd usually be ecstatic over." Harry continued, evidently determined not to let her be until he had answers from her. "Something's clearly upset you, so let us help."

"A Galleon says it's boy trouble," Ron said out of the corner of his mouth to Harry, probably thinking that Hermione couldn't hear.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Hermione asked, glad that she had an excuse to evade Harry's questioning.

"You know exactly what I mean," Ron replied, reaching down to give his Niffler an encouraging pat as it brought back a particularly large haul of coins.

"If you're asking whether I talked to Viktor, then the answer's yes, but I'm not at all upset by that. Our conversation went perfectly well."

"Knew it," Ron muttered, holding his hand out to Harry.

Harry shook his head. "Never took the bet to begin with."

Ron sighed, pulling his hand back. "So what did you and Vicky talk about? If it was talking that you were doing, I mean."

"Honestly, Ron. If you must know, we discussed an invitation he had extended to me yesterday. A generous one, to spend the summer with him in Bulgaria."

Ron raised an eyebrow at her. "Haven't fraternized with him enough in your own country?"

Hermione sighed. "He's hardly the enemy."

"He is until June. But anyway, what did you say to him?"

Hermione didn't respond at first, her mind elsewhere. She was looking over Ron's shoulder, watching Harry, who was reclining on the grass, propped up on his elbows, the pile of coins beside him growing at an astonishingly quick pace.

He had left the conversation when the topic of Krum had come up, seemingly content to let Ron continue his interrogation. It was hard to tell from a distance, but his eyes seemed almost glassy, as if he wasn't expending the effort to focus them on anything, and he didn't react at all to his Niffler, no matter how many coins it found at a time.

Something had to be bothering him, and it had just started now; he had been himself when talking about how he thought she was upset. She'd have to talk to him later, weasel it out of him, if he didn't seem better soon.

She looked back over to Ron, who had been distracted by Neville's Niffler, which had escaped the latter's grasp and was trying to steal coins from Ron's pile.

"I told him that I was flattered, but that I couldn't accept. I just wasn't ready to take that kind of step. Not with him, anyway."

She saw Ron out of the corner of her eye as he scooped up the rogue Niffler and handed it back to an apologetic Neville, but her focus was on Harry as she spoke. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but when his Niffler came back a few moments later, despite the fact that it only had two coins trapped between its paws, he sat up and gave it an affectionate pat.

His eyes were bright again, a lighter green, not the duller forest colour that she could swear they darkened to whenever he was upset. He seemed to have recovered from whatever had been bothering him, and it had happened so quickly that it was almost miraculous.

Her subconscious made the connection for her, whether she had wanted it to or not. Harry's sudden indifference had started when the topic of Krum had arisen, and it had ended when she had mentioned that she had refused his offer.

It could have been a coincidence, but for once the logical half of her brain was in sync with her emotions. They were both screaming the same words inside her head, so loudly that she almost feared that others would hear.

Maybe, just maybe, there was still hope.

She broke out into a sudden smile, startling Ron, who was in the middle of self-importantly congratulating her for finally seeing Krum's true colours.

She forced the smile off of her face, but for the rest of the class, despite the miserable performance of her Niffler, she could feel her happiness bubbling up inside of her. She didn't suppress it, she let it blossom, and she'd probably regret that later, when something happened to disillusion her, but for now she let herself enjoy the feeling.

It was only when she was lying in bed later that night that the euphoria began to wear off, and she remembered that this was far from the first time that she had felt like this, far from the first time that she had thought she had spotted something, something that had given her hope.

That emotional high had never lasted before, and there was no reason to expect this time to be any different, but as she thought back to what Viktor had said to her, when he had wished her good luck, she couldn't help but wonder. He had thought that Harry was a rival, she knew that from Harry's account of the conversation that the two of them had had. And it was just one possible interpretation of his frustratingly cryptic words, but maybe that was what he had been referring to.

Maybe he had seen what nobody else had, maybe, as improbable as it seemed, he had been wishing her good luck with Harry.

That wasn't all that he had said though. He had said that he didn't think she needed it.

Green eyes flickered in her dreams, one dark and one light, one sparkling and one dull, one full of life and the other overflowing with loss.

She just wished that she knew which one was real.


	5. Omens

**A/N: It's been a while, I know, but this is a slightly longer chapter than the usual. Also, with regard to the reviews mentioning that I should be careful not to drag this out too long - thanks, because you're absolutely right. I've adjusted my timeline a little bit to accelerate the plot slightly, so I hope you guys approve. Interesting things are coming up in the next chapter or two, I promise. Enjoy!**

Over the next few weeks Harry forgot almost entirely about the third task of the tournament. There was no point in making any preparations until he knew what he would be up against, and so he devoted his time instead to other pursuits. He put his Firebolt through its paces on several occasions, to make sure neither it nor him grew rusty, although never on the Quidditch pitch, which had been off-limits from the start of the year.

He had no end-of-term exams either, thanks to his status as a Triwizard Champion, and so he had the satisfaction of watching idly as his classmates grew more and more anxious as their date of reckoning approached. Without exams looming over him he found it harder and harder to concentrate in classes, and when Professor Moody asked to speak with him after a particularly daydream-filled afternoon of Defense Against the Dark Arts Harry feared the worst.

Harry had seen Moody's office once before, and so he knew his professor had a large collection of Dark detectors, but there seemed to be even more this time.

The army of Foe-Glasses and Secrecy Sensors was gleaming brightly in the dim light seeping through the torn curtains. Harry found his glance drifting to one of the former, and as he watched, he saw flashes of various faces, but switching in such rapid succession that he couldn't discern any of them. Hard lines blended into soft contours, hair growing and shortening, blurring from blond to black and back again. The only thing in common was the eyes, dark, sunken eyes that grew larger and larger as Harry watched, until he was almost afraid that they would burst, fully-formed, from-

Moody reached out from behind Harry and moved the mirror so that it faced the desktop.

"Professor, I-"

"Don' let them get to you, Potter. They're like me; old, and not as reliable as they used to be."

He gestured with his left hand for Harry to sit, which he did, on a deceptively soft-looking couch.

"Why do you keep them around, sir? If they're no longer reliable?"

"I didn't say they never worked, did I? They might not show things with certainty, but they show possibilities. Shadows. And each is more unlikely than the next, but chasing shadows is my job, in'it?"

Harry nodded. There was probably no point in asking - the whole thing reminded him too much of long, painful hours spent staring into one of Trelawney's inscrutable crystal balls - but his curiousity got the better of him.

"Have you seen anything, sir? Anything that seems more likely than the rest?"

"I've seen many things, Potter. But if you're asking if I know who put your name in the Goblet, then no. Whoever it was, they're biding their time. Trying to lull you into a false sense of security, no doubt."

Moody paused to take a swig from his hip-flask, wiping his mouth with the back of his gnarled hand.

"But enough small talk. Dumbledore asked me to speak with you to inform you that the third task of the tournament will be revealed to the champions at 8 o'clock tonight, at the quidditch pitch. The rest of the school will be there at 8:30, for the ceremonial unveiling, so to speak, but the lucky four of you get a half an hour's head start on them."

A surge of adrenaline ran up Harry's spine. He'd been anxious the last few weeks, bored almost, but that was about to change.

"You look far too happy about that, Potter. You shouldn't be. I told you back at the start of this tournament, and I'll tell you again now, because it doesn't seem to be sticking in that head of yours: whoever put your name in the Goblet is no friend. They didn't decide to do you a favour by giving you a way around the rules. They did it because the tournament is an excellent way to kill somebody, and the fact that they haven't made a move yet makes it all the more likely that they will now. So keep a good eye on your enemies, Potter, because so long as you're watching them they can't act against you."

Harry knew that Moody was right, but it still didn't make sense. Who were his enemies? He honestly couldn't think of anybody who would genuinely want to kill him. There was Voldemort, of course, but he couldn't touch Harry. He had been incredibly weak three years ago when he had possessed Quirrell, and Harry's touch had caused his host to crumble into ash, leaving Voldemort even weaker than before.

"I can't think of anybody who would want to kill me, Professor. Besides Voldemort, that is, and I don't see how he could be strong enough to pose a threat."

Moody slammed his hip-flask down on the side-table with such force that Harry was surprised the wood didn't crack.

"You don't think that the Dark Lord could pose a threat. You don't think that the most powerful wizard who has ever lived could pose a threat to you? Don't look so surprised to hear me say that, Potter. I'm as great a supporter of Albus Dumbledore as any, but the Dark Lord has done things that Dumbledore wouldn't dare to even dream of. I was an Auror for over forty years. I've seen a lot of magic, Dark and otherwise, weak and strong, and both times that I was in the Dark Lord's presence, times that I consider myself incredibly lucky to have survived, I saw him perform magic that I didn't think was possible. Nobody hates the Dark more than me, Potter, nobody - but even I was in awe of him. You might have nearly destroyed him thirteen years ago, but he isn't dead. He's out there somewhere, licking his wounds, biding his time, and one day he will return. Dumbledore is right to prepare for that day, because it will come, and his wrath will be like that of a god upon infidels, so we had better be ready for it."

Moody's voice had grown louder and louder as he talked, and as Harry listened to him he could see, for just a moment, why he was called Mad-Eye. The eye part was obvious, but Harry realized that his passion against the Dark, his fervent opposition and hatred of it, almost bordered on madness. There was something dangerous, unhinged, even, that flickered in his natural eye as he talked of Voldemort and the Dark, and Harry found himself very glad when Moody reached the end of his sermon.

Moody took another drink from his flask, and when he put it back down the madness was gone.

"I don't mean to scare you too much, Potter. A little fear is healthy, that's all."

Harry nodded, still too shocked by Moody's rant to talk.

"In all likelihood it isn't the Dark Lord. There are other people in the castle whom you should be just as concerned about. Karkaroff and Snape were both Death Eaters - put the former in Azkaban myself - and once Dark, always Dark. And Karkaroff's been teaching the Dark Arts at Durmstrang his whole career, which makes Krum dangerous too. Then the Malfoys of course - I never trusted Lucius, not for a moment - and the son's nothing if not like his father."

Harry's mind was spinning now with potential enemies, each word that Moody spoke adding another potential attacker, another direction from which he would have to defend himself. Harry just hoped that the former's paranoia wouldn't start to rub off on him.

Harry was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable in the office, which seemed unseasonably cold and dark. All of the anxiety and nervousness which he had been able to ignore for the past few weeks had come crashing back down upon him again, and it was going to overwhelm him if he stayed here much longer.

"So what do you suggest I do then, Professor?"

"Constant vigilance, that's what!" Moody barked, startling Harry, who felt his heart skip a beat and then hesitate before the next. "Keep an eye on everyone, Potter. Practice your spells, defensive and otherwise. Be ready to think on your feet, because the third task will demand that. I've seen it, and it makes the dragon and the lake look tame by comparison. And the way it's designed, it'll be nearly impossible for any of us to intervene once you've started it, so you'll be on your own. Be ready for that."

Harry nodded. "I will be, Professor."

He looked over at the door, and Moody caught the cue.

"I've kept you from your dinner for too long, Potter. Go enjoy it. But remember what I said, eh? People have died in this tournament, so let's try to keep you off of that list."

Harry emerged from Moody's office feeling faint, almost light-headed. He walked slowly towards the Great Hall, not trusting his body to propel him any faster.

In the matter of twenty minutes Moody had revived every single fear that Harry had suppressed, every single troubling possibility that he had forced himself to ignore. It wasn't that Harry didn't want to deal with the facts, it was just that if somebody really wanted to kill him, all it would take was a carefully aimed wand and two well-chosen words. He had survived the Killing Curse once, but he didn't like his chances of a repeat, given that there was no known defense against it. So Moody could talk all he wanted about counter-curses and jinxes, and Harry would heed his advice to practice, but when it came down to it, if Harry was facing down any one of the enemies Moody had mentioned, whether it was Krum or Snape or Karkaroff or even Voldemort himself, Harry really wouldn't stand a chance.

That was why he had suppressed those thoughts, because he knew that there was nothing he could possibly do to guard against those possibilities. Why think about the risk of impending death when it couldn't be averted?

But Moody had dragged those thoughts out of the dark room in his subconscious that Harry had condemned them to, and so it was with a freshly disillusioned mind that Harry walked into the Great Hall, his knees weak and his stomach churning so quickly that he doubted he could keep food down.

To his surprise, he saw Moody already at the teacher's table, sitting next to Ludo Bagman. Moody could move unexpectedly quickly when he wanted to, Harry supposed, but he was still surprised that Moody had arrived before him.

"What did Moody want?" Hermione asked as he sat down between her and Fred.

"Not much," Harry replied, his eyes on the food at the centre of the table as he debated whether any of it would agree with him. "Just wanted to remind me of the very real possibility that someone'll try to off me during the third task."

"Don't tell me Mad-Eye saw something in one of his Dark detectors," George chimed in, leaning past his twin so that Harry could see him. "Odds are he hallucinated it, if so."

"Nothing like that," Harry said, declining to mention that he had been the one who had seen faces in the Foe-Glass. "He reminded me that I have enemies, that's all."

"Like who?" Ron asked between mouthfuls of chicken, his glance flickering in the direction of the Slytherin table. "He wasn't referring just to the ferret, I assume."

"He mentioned him and a few others. Snape. Karkaroff."

Harry almost added Krum's name to the list before thinking better of it.

"Moody doesn't trust Snape?" Hermione asked, surprised.

"Course he doesn't," Ron replied. "Moody barely trusts his own shadow, and Snape doesn't make it easy to trust him, does he."

"He trusts Dumbledore though, and Dumbledore trusts Snape," Hermione countered. "That's why all of us trust him, isn't it?"

"Depends on if you think Dumbledore's perfect or not, I suppose," Harry said, having finally settled on a plate of dry potatoes.

"Don't tell me you don't trust Snape either," Hermione said, turning her shocked glare on Harry. "He saved your life in first year, in case you'd forgotten. Without him saying a counter-curse Quirrell would have had your broom throw you off."

"Remind me, Hermione," Ron said, "but which one of us set Snape's robes on fire as he was casting that counter-curse?"

"That's irrelevant," she said, flushing slightly.

Suddenly the hall grew much darker, the lanterns around its perimeter extinguishing themselves. The only illumination was from the enchanted ceiling, and it was so faint that Harry could barely see Ron, who was directly across the table from him.

"What's going on?" a voice asked from somewhere to Harry's right.

"No clue," another answered. "Those torches always stay lit."

"It's like a power outage," Seamus chimed in, his Irish accent the only reason Harry could identify him. "Except magic isn't meant to go out."

Conversations of that nature were happening all throughout the hall, creating a confused din that grew louder and progressively more frantic the longer the darkness stayed.

A burst of flame flew over Harry's left shoulder, leaving a trail of smoke behind it. It was followed by dozens of others, all coming from the head of the room. Each flame was headed for a different section of the hall's edge, presumably to re-ignite the extinguished lanterns.

Sure enough, the light returned to the hall a moment later. Dumbledore stood behind his lectern, wand still raised as the chatter died down.

"My apologies for that unplanned interruption of your meal," he said, his voice cutting through the last few snippets of conversation. "Fortunately, it did provide me with a superb method of acquiring your attention."

"He does have a flair for the dramatic, doesn't he?" George whispered, not taking his eyes from Dumbledore.

"He didn't plan that." Hermione said, her voice quiet. "Something went wrong. Very wrong. Do you know when the last time those torches were extinguished was?"

She directed this last question to Harry, who shook his head.

"Over a thousand years ago. It was Salazar Slytherin who did it, as an act of spite as he marched from the Great Hall for the final time before he left the school for good."

"So not a good omen, then," Harry muttered. He was feeling a little bit better now that he had eaten - the light-headedness had gone away entirely - but he still had a distinctly uneasy feeling in his stomach.

"At this time," Dumbledore continued, "I would invite our four champions to accompany the Triwizard organizers to the Quidditch pitch, where the final task of the tournament will be revealed."

"Go get 'em, Harry!" Colin yelled, his voice just one among many, snapping a pair of photos as Harry slowly stood up.

"Good luck, mate," Ron said.

"Remember everything they tell you," Hermione said, speaking very quickly, as Harry was the only champion not yet at the front of the hall. Her eyes were locked on Harry's, her voice seeming to carry despite the background noise. "Even the slightest detail could be important."

"You'll get a full report," he promised.

Harry made his way up to the end of the hall, determined to keep his nerves under control. Hagrid met his gaze from the teacher's table, giving him a nod and a wink as he passed by.

Harry followed the other champions out a side door, hurrying to catch up.

"... been working on it all year," Ludo Bagman was saying, walking backwards at the head of the group so that he could face the champions. "Been a bit more work than we anticipated, I'll admit that, and I can't say it was cheap, but I think you'll all agree it was worth it.

"I certainly hope so, given how far it was over Mr. Crouch's budget," Percy said. He seemed decidedly uninterested in the whole affair, in sharp contrast to Bagman, who was smiling from ear to ear.

The two of them led the champions in single file through a narrow side entrance to the stadium. Harry, who was walking just behind Cedric, heard the older boy gasp as he emerged onto the pitch.

A moment later Harry saw the cause of Cedric's shock - enormous dark green hedges nearly as tall as the goal hoops had burst from the ground of the pitch, in no discernible pattern. Harry couldn't see very far in any direction thanks to the hedges, but from what he could see they numbered in the dozens, seeming to cover the entirety of the pitch.

"I guess this explains why there was no quidditch this year," Cedric muttered to Harry, who nodded in reply, still trying to process the pitch's dramatic transformation.

"So any guesses as to what it is?" Bagman asked, still beaming, no doubt pleased to see how surprised the champions were.

"Eet is a maze, eez it not?" Fleur replied, the calmest of the four.

"Exactly!" Bagman said. "The third task is very simple. The Triwizard Cup will be placed at an undisclosed location near the maze's centre, and the first of you to reach it will become the champion. Any questions?"

"You should tell them about the start," Percy said almost immediately, his arms crossed. "Mr Crouch said it was very important that you-"

"Yes, yes, thank you Percy, I was getting to that," Bagman cut in, holding up his hand to quiet the more junior organizer.

"As I was saying, each of you will be allowed to enter at different times, according to your scores so far in the tournament. Mr Krum will enter first, followed by Mr Potter, Mr Diggory and finally Miss Delacour. There's one other thing that you should know though," Bagman continued as he took a step towards the champions, his tone conspiratorial, "and that's the fact that strictly speaking what we have here is more than one maze. It's four separate mazes, with no link between them save for the cup, which is at the end of each. Each of you will enter from a different location, and in this way there will be no chance of any interactions between champions. Not that we don't trust you to play by the rules, of course, but it was one of the conditions of the tournament's revival."

"Does anyone else know this?" Harry asked, inferring from Bagman's tone.

Bagman shook his head. "Only the other judges. We think the audience will be more engaged if they think that there's the potential for some of you to actually square off head-to-head inside the maze."

"We should hurry," Percy said, examining a large pocket-watch. It must have been new - Harry hadn't seen him with it before. "We're supposed to do the draw before the rest of the students arrive."

"The draw?" Cedric asked.

"To determine which entrance each of you will take into the maze. They're all equally challenging, of course, but it's only fair to do it randomly," Bagman answered, producing a small cloth bag from an inside pocket. "Now then… the rules don't specify how we do this, so shall we say youngest first?"

He didn't wait for an answer, stepping towards Harry and undoing the knot at the top of the bag. Harry lowered his hand into the bag, reaching to mix up the objects which lay at the bottom. One of them seemed distinctly warmer than the others, and seemed to almost stick to his hand as he moved, so he ended up taking that one.

He opened his hand once it was clear of the bag to reveal a metal sphere, just barely bigger than a Gobstone, with the letter 'C' carved on it. On the opposite side of the 'C' was a small picture of a creature that he didn't recognize - it looked rather like a snake, except that it had three heads instead of one, and was an unusually bright orange. The picture moved as Harry watched, the snake slithering back and forth, its tongues flicking in and out of its mouths in what was a vaguely hypnotic fashion.

"C is the north-west entrance, Harry," Bagman said, pointing across the pitch as he moved to Fleur.

The remaining three champions picked in turn, each closely examining their selection.

"Now," Bagman said, returning the now-empty bag to his robes. "As I'm sure you've noticed there is a picture of a creature on each of your tokens. That creature is just one of the many that will be stalking the corridors of your maze, but we chose to give you a little advance notice about these, because they might require some preparation on your part if you wish to safely proceed past them."

Harry glanced again at the picture of the snake-like creature. It didn't seem that dangerous. No doubt it was highly poisonous, and probably aggressive and with a skin resistant to magic, but it shouldn't pose a threat to him. He was a Parselmouth, and so he was pretty confident that he would be able to convince the snake to leave him alone.

He had lucked out, actually, which was a pleasant change from the usual course of events. He had been expecting something truly horrible to be waiting for him in his maze - a Chimaera, maybe, or even a Manticore - but if a three-headed snake was the worst that it had to offer then he should be just fine.

Bagman had started to speak again, but Harry didn't hear a word he was saying, his attention elsewhere. There was a black dot at the base of Bagman's neck, standing out against his blond hair. It was hard to tell from the distance Harry was at, but maybe…

Harry slipped his hand into his pocket, slowly sliding out his wand. The attention of the others was on Bagman, and so his movement went unnoticed.

"Accio Rita Skeeter," he whispered, hoping that this would work as he intended.

Sure enough, the black dot zoomed directly towards Harry, who plucked it out of the air with his left hand, forming a fist around it to keep it in place.

"Got you," he whispered, triumphant.

He stowed his wand, returning his attention to Bagman.

" … and that will be two weeks from today. Now, that's all we have to tell you for tonight. The rest of the school will be here shortly, and of course you're more than welcome to stick around if you'd like, but it'll just be a rehash of what you already know, except with much more fanfare."

His smile, which had persisted for so long that Harry had started to wonder if it was painted on, grew even wider at the mention of fanfare.

As it turned out, all four champions took Bagman's invitation to leave. The other three chose to take an indirect path back to the castle, to avoid the mass of students descending from the Great Hall, but Harry did his best to wade through the crowd, his left hand closed firmly at his side, determined to find Ron and Hermione.

"Harry! Harry!"

Hermione's voice came from behind him, and he spun around to see her and Ron standing just off to the side of the crowd, waving at him.

"How was the reveal?" she asked. "What's the task? What do you need to prepare for?"

"It was great," Harry said, his left palm in tremendous pain from the repeated bites of the entrapped beetle. "and I'll tell you all about it later, but do you have the jar with you?"

"You've got her?" Ron asked as Hermione tossed Harry the glass jar.

Harry unscrewed the lid, dumped the beetle inside and quickly closed the jar up again. He held it up for the other two to see.

"Look at those markings," Hermione said, squinting as she pointed at the beetle. "Those - right around her eyes. They're almost like…"

"Her glasses," Harry finished. "Those jeweled monstrosities that she always wears. I guess they're her identifying mark."

As they talked the crowd continued to file into the stadium, until it was just the trio left standing on the side of the hill.

"I don't know about you guys," Harry said after a brief pause, "but I feel like it's high time we put an end to Rita's inventive articles."

"I still don't believe she had the nerve to write those things," Hermione said, her gaze fixed on the castle. "There was barely a word of truth in any of them, was there?"

It was ironic, wasn't it? Rita had gone to such effort to make up some sensationalist story, not caring whether what she wrote was true or not, but there was a surprising amount of truth in her article nevertheless. Harry and Krum had been rivals for more than the Triwizard Cup - first in Krum's estimation and later Harry's, even though the latter had taken his time realizing - and somehow Rita, of all people, had seen that.

"She just wrote what she thought would sell," Harry replied. "What she thought people wanted to hear."

"What people wanted to hear," Hermione repeated slowly, almost sadly. "I guess you're right. It just seems odd; you'd think people would want to hear the truth, not a lie."

Harry hesitated. The way she was talking - she - no, she couldn't be, she couldn't possibly know, but at the same time… he didn't know what to think. He had seen her watching him when she had told Ron about her conversation with Viktor. He knew that she had wanted to see his reaction, and he doubted he had hidden it as well as he had tried to.

Something snapped in his mind, some switch flipping from one state to another. He couldn't go on like this. He was a Gryffindor, wasn't he? He had fought off dragons and mermen and Basilisks and he'd even managed to ask a girl to the Yule Ball. This was nothing compared to that. This was Hermione. Hermione. The worst thing that could happen was a sad shake of her head. He'd live, and at least that way he'd know.

Tonight, he promised himself. Tonight he'd tell her the truth, and with any luck, it would be what she wanted to hear.

Harry's focus returned to his surroundings, and he realized that he'd been staring off at the horizon for the last minute.

"So… to the common-room, then?" Ron asked, breaking the long silence and looking very confused as he stood between his two best friends.

They nodded, and so the three of them began the long walk up to Gryffindor Tower, hostage in hand.


	6. The Truth

**A/N: So, uh... it's been a while. That being said, I am back, and this is a story I want to tell, so I hope to continue with somewhat regular updates going forward. To anybody who started this story two years ago and is still reading: thanks for sticking with me. To you, and to anybody who has just picked this story up for the first time: enjoy.**

Harry started to feel distinctly uneasy as he, Ron and Hermione walked up the Grand Staircase. It was only as they waited for a set of stairs to rotate around to them, and it stopped with a quiet thud, that he realized what was different. He could hear the castle. Almost everyone was outside, down at the quidditch pitch for the unveiling of the third task, and so the usual noise caused by hundreds of students going about their daily business was non-existent. In its absence, Harry could hear all of the sounds that he usually only heard at night: the staircases settling into place, the quiet swoosh of the clock tower's pendulum, the dull clatter of pots and pans coming from the kitchen as the house-elves cleaned up from dinner. They were at odds with the wisps of sunlight that still trickled in through the windows, the sunset casting everything in dark orange shadow. The castle seemed much more forbidding when it was empty, and Harry found himself looking over his shoulder with mildly paranoid regularity.

The entrance to Gryffindor Tower was sealed, as per usual, but the Fat Lady was conspicuously absent. Harry had a brief moment of panic before hearing her high-pitched laugh, accompanied by the sound of broken glass. He followed the noise down the hall, eventually finding her, unsurprisingly, in Violet's portrait. Violet and her appeared to be entertaining two other visitors that Harry didn't recognize, both elderly but distinguished-looking wizards. Each of the four had a bottle in hand, and they were all laughing heartily at something or other.

Hermione stood in front of the painting, waiting for them to notice her, but to no avail. She cleared her throat loudly, but Violet had started telling a story - something about the time she and the Fat Lady had gotten Sir Cadogan a little bit _too_ drunk - and so Hermione went unheard.

Hermione stepped back from the painting, looking at Harry and Ron.

"Typical," she sighed. "One of you try."

Harry reached out and rapped his knuckles softly on the edge of the portrait-frame. The frame was much lighter than he had expected, and so the whole painting bounced gently against the wall before eventually settling back into place.

The sudden movement caught the attention of all four of the drinkers, particularly that of one of the wizards who, mid-sip, stumbled and sloshed a large portion of his drink all over his robe.

"Such violence is hardly called for, young man," he said, whisking a handkerchief from his vest and patting the stain with futile dignity. "I certainly hope you at least have a reason for disturbing this little soirée."

"Sorry," Harry said, feeling a little guilty. "We were just hoping to get into Gryffindor Tower."

"Portrait's open, dear," the Fat Lady said, taking a gulp of what Harry presumed to be wine. "Left it like that, I did. I'm taking the night off."

"Taking the night off?" Hermione echoed, her eyebrow raised.

"Don't you think I deserve one once in a while?" the Fat Lady asked, laughing, as she took another drink, somehow managing not to choke.

"It's a good thing that's not real wine," Ron muttered to Harry, "or she'd have gone through half the castle's supply by now."

"Have you ever wondered how it works?" Harry asked him as Hermione tried to be patient with the Fat Lady. "I mean, they're not technically alive, and it's not actual alcohol, so how do they manage to get drunk?"

Ron shrugged. "It's magic, mate. Don't think about it too much, because it won't make sense no matter how hard you-"

"Look," Hermione said, frustrated, her voice now drowning out Ron's, "I don't care whether you left it open or not, but it's not open now. I can even see it from here."

The Fat Lady looked up, concentrating for a moment.

"Hmmph, you're right. Must be losing my touch. I'll just be a moment then, dears. Don't have too much fun without me."

She addressed this last comment to her three companions, before walking out of the frame in the direction of her own portrait. Harry, Ron and Hermione followed her, the latter letting out an audible sigh when the portrait-door began to swing open.

"Leave that open, would you?" the Fat Lady said irritably to Ron, who was about to close the portrait behind the trio. "I don't want to keep doing this for everyone."

"Hardly seems very secure," Harry commented, although only after the Fat Lady had left.

Hermione nodded absently, putting the jar with Rita in it on one of the chairs next to the fire.

"So how are we going to do this?" Ron asked. "It won't be that long before everyone is back."

"I've got it covered," Hermione replied, walking over to the room's two large windows. She tapped each with her wand, murmuring a Colour-Change Charm. The windows turned a dark, smoky grey colour, which would prevent anybody outside from seeing in.

She then walked out of the common-room, into the hallway, before returning a moment later and taking a seat between Harry and Ron on the couch.

"I cast an Intruder Charm at the top of the staircase," she explained, placing her wand on the side table.

"An Intruder Charm?" Ron asked, nonplussed.

"It'll alert me if anybody passes by it," Hermione elaborated matter-of-factly. "It's supposed to be quite tricky, and this is the first time I've tried one, but the theory seemed relatively straightforward for a seventh-year spell."

The spell must have been in the massive book he had seen her reading the night they had discussed his conversation with Viktor, Harry thought.

When you were Hermione's friend, it was easy after a while to get used to the fact that she seemingly knew a spell for every possible situation, and could perform them all flawlessly. But hearing her mention, with a quiet yet unashamed confidence, that she had taught herself a charm that students in their final year would no doubt find difficult, Harry was reminded of just how brilliant she was. She had probably studied more magic than any other student in the school, and she hadn't even know magic existed until four years ago.

He was incredibly lucky to have her as a friend. She had probably put more effort into the Triwizard Tournament than he had, sacrificing sleep and maybe even her own grades for him, and she had asked nothing in return. Harry's resolve wavered, as he thought of how fierce a friend Hermione had been. She had given so much of her heart to him, and to Ron, for as long as he had known her, and suddenly Harry felt intensely selfish for wanting to ask her for more.

Harry took a deep breath, forcing himself to focus. Rita Skeeter was the type of person who would talk you in circles and twist your words around if you didn't have your wits about you.

Beside him, Hermione had retrieved the glass jar from her bag and set it down on a chair next to the couch. Rita was sitting on the leaf of lettuce inside the jar, stubbornly refusing to eat it.

"And now for you, Rita," Hermione began. "I'm going to let you out of that jar in a moment. When I do, you are going to sit on that chair while you listen to the deal that the three of us will offer you. If you do not accept that deal, or if you fail to honour it at any point in the future, then I will report you as an unregistered Animagus to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. They will investigate, and upon discovering the truth, will have no choice but to prepare a cell for you in Azkaban."

She reached over and opened the jar, pouring the beetle it contained onto the chair. The beetle struggled for a moment to flip itself over, having landed unceremoniously on its back, before Ron reached out and gave it a sympathetic push. It wobbled a bit, unsteady on its feet, and then slowly started to walk, wandering randomly about the seat of the chair.

The trio watched it expectantly for a few moments, but nothing happened. "Don't tell me you got the wrong beetle," Ron whispered.

Harry shook his head. "I caught her using a Summoning Charm. Unless there's another water beetle out there named Rita Skeeter, this is her. The question is, how do we force her to show herself."

"There's a spell for it, isn't there?" Ron asked. "The one that Sirius and Lupin used on Scabbers - Pettigrew, I mean. The Homorphus Charm. It forces Transfigured or transformed wizards to assume their human form. People even tried using it on werewolves for a while, although it doesn't work."

"How do you know all that?" Hermione said, trying and failing to keep the surprise from showing on her face.

"I asked Lupin about it before he left last year," Ron replied, smiling in a way that reminded Harry of Fred and George. "I figured it might be fun to prank McGonagall with it sometime."

"Isn't the Homorphus Charm the one with the really awful side effects if it's done improperly?" Harry said, having had an idea. He took out his wand, tapping its tip against the table. "I remember reading that if it goes wrong, the target can end up permanently transformed, or else stuck halfway between their transformation and their human form."

"What are you talking abo- Ow!" Hermione cut off, having received a sharp elbow in the ribs from Ron, who had caught on.

Harry took a deep breath, as if steadying himself, and pointed his wand squarely at the beetle. He had just opened his mouth, ready to say some nonsense incantation, when the beetle took off from the chair, becoming a black blur headed for the open portrait-door. Harry dove for the beetle but missed, smashing his jaw into a table leg.

"Accio Rita Skeeter!" Ron said, thankfully, and the beetle zoomed back into his waiting hand. He put it back on the chair, and Harry quickly stood up, walking over to it.

"If it really is you, Rita," Harry said, "then don't move, because that'll only make this harder for me."

Hermione opened her mouth, desperately wanting to correct Harry, most likely, but this time she overcame the urge.

Harry readied himself to 'cast' the Homorphus Charm again, but he never got the chance, for a moment later the beetle was gone, and the trio were faced by a rather frazzled-looking Rita Skeeter, her glasses askew and her poisonous green quill hanging limply from her fingers.

"Yes, yes, well done, you got me," she sighed, trying and failing to straighten her glasses. "So what do the three of you want from me? Is it some dirt? A sharp yet witty exposé of one of your rivals? The one about Miss Delacour practically writes itself, of course, but there are things I could tell you about that charming Diggory boy that would shock you. Just rumours, of course, but one hears things about some rather frequent trips to the Prefect's bathroom with the lovely-"

"I'd rather you didn't, actually," Ron said, not a moment too soon.

Rita frowned. "Well then what do you expect of me? I assume this kidnapping and subsequent extortion is about more than the pleasure of my compa-"

"We expect you to stop lying," Harry said quietly, pleased with the way his voice cut through Rita's. "We expect you to stick to the truth when you write about us - any of us."

Rita laughed, a loud, long laugh that seemed far too happy. "Oh, Harry, Harry, my dear dear Harry. I won't deny that most of my columns have a very long-distance relationship with the truth, but your story is one of the few I've never felt the need to lie about. Your life doesn't need any of my little embellishments; it sells just fine on its own."

"That's another lie," Harry said sharply, his patience running thin. "The only truth that that article you wrote about Hermione and me for _Witch Weekly_ contained was the byline."

Of course, his denial wasn't exactly true, but he had to hope that Rita believed him.

"Oh I see," she said, tapping her quill slowly on the arm of the chair, a triumphant gleam in her eye. "I see. You're quite right, Harry. That article was just chock-full of lies. Truly appalling. Not a single itty-bitty shred of truth, I'm sure."

She winked at Harry, a wry smile on her face. "Now if that's all you want from me, I really am in quite a hurry. All these confidential sources won't eavesdrop upon themselves, after all."

She was gone before any of the trio could respond, a small black beetle dashing across the floor, scampering up to the windowsill, and slipping out into the grounds.

"Can we just turn her in anyway?" Ron asked, standing up and stretching. "Even if she sticks to her word, she's a nasty piece of work."

"Her word is as good as useless," Hermione replied, walking over to the windows and tapping them with her wand, making them return to their normal shade. "The way she scuttled out of here, she couldn't care less what we threatened her with."

Harry shifted to lie down on the now-empty couch, his head propped up on one side and his feet just barely dangling over the other. He sighed, closing his eyes and trying to drown out the sound of Ron and Hermione's conversation so he could focus.

Rita knew. She was too flippant, too irritatingly self-confident, and it was about to drive Harry over the edge. He could deal with being lied about. People had been telling stories about him for the last four years. Half the school had believed that he was the Heir of Slytherin, sure to be the next Dark Lord, and that had barely bothered him. He had known the truth, and he hadn't given a damn about his reputation, and so, much like for Sirius, the truth had been enough.

But this was different. Somehow, probably by accident, Rita had stumbled into the truth. And if she had had any doubts about that, her meeting with Harry and the others tonight had surely erased them. It was only going to get worse from here on out. Much worse, and especially for Hermione, whom Rita would almost certainly paint as some kind of - well, to borrow Ron's terminology - scarlet woman.

This had to end. Whatever Rita knew, she would make sure the rest of the world knew it too, and soon. Sure, she would have no proof, and anybody who knew Harry and Hermione might just laugh it off, like they had at Rita's first article, but she wouldn't let up. She wouldn't let go of a story like this. Before the year was up she'd probably be living full-time in the Gryffindor common-room, crawling up to the dormitories at night in hopes of hearing gossip and hitching a ride on the inside of Ron's sleeves to breakfast.

Harry's resolve strengthened again. He had to tell Hermione how he felt, and he had to do it tonight. It might not stop Rita, but either way, it would mean that he and Hermione would both know the truth, and Rita wouldn't be able to drive a wedge between them. He wasn't being selfish; he had to do this, to protect both Hermione and himself.

"... that's the issue," Hermione was saying as Harry returned his attention to the conversation. She was pacing in front of the couch, unsettled. "If we took this to the Ministry, even if they believed us, she'd get a chance to tell her side of the story, about how we kidnapped and subsequently blackmailed her. She could drag us right down with her."

"Nobody in the Ministry would believe her," scoffed Ron.

"It would be her word against ours," Harry said glumly. "And we're three fourteen year-olds. It's the same situation as last year, when we were the only ones who knew the truth about Sirius."

"Anyway," Hermione said, a little bit too cheerily, "we can worry about that later. You haven't told us about the third task yet, Harry!"

"It's a maze," Harry replied. "Each of us has a separate one, and they meet at the centre, where the cup is. There'll be other obstacles too - Bagman hinted at creatures, enchantments, that sort of thing."

Hermione had somehow found a quill and scrap of parchment and was scribbling furiously, muttering quickly under her breath.

"A maze?" Ron asked, incredulous.

"Four of them."

Ron's brow furrowed. "But where can they possibly fit four mazes?" His expression darkened. "They're not… they didn't put them in the forest, did they?"

"Quidditch pitch," Harry said. "Bagman claimed it'd be good as new for September," he added quickly, seeing Ron's face fall at the thought of the pitch being ruined.

Harry glanced over at Hermione again, who was still writing, now on the reverse of the parchment. She paused for a moment, tapping the feathery end of the quill against her thigh, the corner of her mouth curled upward as she tried to recall something. She reached to brush a few rogue strands of hair behind her ear and then seemed to remember whatever it was that had been eluding her. She added it to the end of her note, her hair forgotten for the time being.

"You'll need that too," she said quietly as she turned the parchment sideways, presumably to fit even more writing into the margin, "since I doubt… hmm.."

She summoned her bag from across the room without looking up and pulled out a textbook that must have weighed almost as much as she did, setting it next to her on her chair.

Harry walked over to her quickly, putting his hand on the book's cover before she could open it. Once she got started with research, she didn't tend to stop for anything other than a fire (and even then it had to be a fairly large one), and he needed to talk to her tonight.

Hermione tried to lift his hand out of the way, and when he refused to move it, shot him a sharp glare.

"You look exhausted," Harry said truthfully. "Whatever you're working on, it's not worth losing a good night's sleep."

"It's seven-thirty," she said, not incorrectly.

"And if you start reading this now," he said, tapping his fingers on top of the textbook, "you'll work until at least two."

"I'm compiling a list of counter-curses and hexes that might be useful in the maze. Any one of them could save your life, and I consider that worth the loss of a little sleep."

"You're not going to win this one, Harry," Ron said, sounding quite amused. "Separating Hermione from her book is a bit like trying to steal that egg from the Horntail, except the dragon is much less…"

Ron trailed off meekly, no doubt out of a strong sense of self-preservation. Hermione was scowling at him with such intensity that Harry would have been entirely unsurprised if the wall behind Ron had crumbled.

"Maybe… maybe I'll go and brush my teeth," he said, backing slowly towards the staircase to the dorm.

"Don't push me, Ronald, or I might just start breathing fire," Hermione said, her scowl melting into a playful, self-satisfied smile.

"The same goes for you," she added, once Ron was out of sight. "I appreciate the concern, but I'll be f-"

She let out an enormous yawn, covering her mouth with her sleeve. "I'm fine," she insisted, sitting up a bit straighter in the chair.

Harry cracked a smile, but his insides were churning like butter. He thought back to when he had bumped into Cho, back in the fall, and awkwardly pulled her out of her group of friends to ask her to the ball. He remembered how worried he had been that he would trip over his own tongue and say the wrong thing, how terrified he had been that she'd be shocked, or worse, insulted.

He was feeling all of that again tonight, except worse, a dozen times worse. He wished that he had prepared, that he had thought more about how he wanted to say things, but it was too late for that now.

"At any rate," Hermione continued, business-like, "since you won't let me work in peace, you can help me make a training plan for you. What combat spells do you know?"

The words were bubbling up in Harry's brain, ready to burst out, but he kept them bottled up. Wait for the right time, he told himself. Breathe. It's just Hermione.

"Um… just Disarming," Harry said, after thinking for a second more. "And a Patronus, if that counts?"

She shook her head as she pulled out a fresh piece of parchment. Harry was trying to relax, but he could feel adrenaline starting to surge through him, and he was suddenly finding it near-impossible to sit still and keep his hands from shaking.

"You'll need to learn Stunning, the Reductor Curse, and the Impediment Jinx. At a minimum. And you have two weeks, so if you spend six hours a day and start-"

"Hermione," Harry cut in, unable to wait any longer, "I really appreciate your help, but can we talk about this later? There's something I need to ask you about first."

"Of course," she said, turning away from the parchment to face him. She frowned, probably noticing that he was shaking like a leaf. "Is everything ok, Harry?"

Harry nodded. Then he took a deep breath, looked his best friend in the eye, and let everything out.

"I was thinking about the lake," he started, forcing himself to speak slowly. "And about the choice that I made down there. I mean, it wasn't a choice. Because I honestly didn't see Ron. But when I saw you I knew that I couldn't possibly leave you there, that it would break me if I did, and I didn't feel that when I saw Ron a minute later. I wanted to save him too, and if Krum hadn't grabbed him I would have, but I knew I couldn't leave you there, or I would never forgive myself."

He stopped to take a breath. He felt as though he was in the lake again, deep underwater where it was so dark he couldn't tell which way was up, and all he could do was hope he was headed in the right direction, because he had no other options.

Hermione's face was unreadable. She probably had no clue why he was rambling, or what his point was. There had to be a more eloquent way to say what was in his heart. There had to be a way to tell her that he wanted to know what it would feel like to hold her, to kiss her, to have her at his side, but he couldn't find it. Maybe he just wasn't brave enough to be that direct.

"I… I was thinking about all of this," he continued, "and I realized that - that I don't feel the same way about you as I do about Ron. I - you mean something more to me. More than just my friend."

He kept hoping to see something in her eyes, some sign of approval, but she hadn't even blinked since he'd started talking. The only change he'd noticed was that her right hand was now squeezing the arm of the chair so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Hermione spoke, so softly that Harry could barely hear her.

"Are you trying to ask me out?"

Harry nodded, and then suddenly his glasses were tumbling off of his head, and the world was a blur of brown hair. He felt arms squeezing tight around him, and only then did he realize that Hermione had launched herself at him, into a fierce hug. He stumbled backwards onto the couch, unable to keep his footing.

She pulled back just as suddenly and handed him his glasses from the floor. He put them on and saw her beaming down at him, and something in his chest soared.

"You.. you have no idea how long I've… oh never mind," she said, still smiling. "We should talk though, and people will be back from the reveal of the task soon, so let's go for a walk."

She reached down, and he took her hand, letting her help him to his feet.

"Harry! HARRY!"

Ron screamed from behind Harry and Hermione, who both quickly dropped the other's hand, recent events momentarily forgotten. A second later Ron ran down the staircase from the dormitory and into the common-room, his toothbrush still in his hand.

"Harry you need to come up here now," he said, breathing heavily. "Something very bad is happening. Very very bad."

He ran back up the stairs, leaving Harry and Hermione to follow him. When Harry got to his dormitory, he saw immediately why Ron had panicked.

Harry's area of the dormitory was in complete disarray. His bedsheets and curtains had been thrown into the centre of the room, and the lid of his trunk had been blasted off of its hinges by some spell, leaving its contents strewn across the floor.

Harry quickly started looking through his things, trying to see if anything was missing.

"I have no idea what happened, mate," Ron was saying, although Harry wasn't paying any attention. "Nobody other than a Gryffindor should have been able to get in here, now that Neville knows not to write down passwords anymore. I don't know who would do this."

"I do," Hermione said, her voice quivering slightly. She pointed, and Harry saw what both he and Ron had missed previously. Stencilled in green ink onto his headboard, glowing with an eerie, unnatural light, was a Dark Mark.

"Bloody hell," Ron whispered.

"That's not the worst of it," Harry said, a dull lump settling in his throat as he finished taking an inventory of his few possessions.

"My Invisibility Cloak is missing."


	7. Ashes

**A/N: Well, I did a little better than a two-year update frequency this time! This is a slightly less exciting chapter than the last couple, which I apologize for, but it's because my vision for this story has expanded a lot since I first published Chapter One, and so a lot of groundwork has to be laid for future events. I promise it will all pay off in Chapters 9 and 10, but I hope you enjoy this one regardless!**

Harry swore, louder than he meant to. His Invisibility Cloak had been stolen.

"You need to tell Dumbledore about this," Hermione said, her voice quivering slightly.

Harry sat at the foot of his bed, stunned. His Cloak was gone. It was, without doubt, his most valuable possession, having protected him, Ron and Hermione from the eyes of Filch and Mrs Norris more times than he could count. And even beyond that, it was one of the perilously few connections he had to his father. This same Cloak was the reason Lupin had been able to remain a student at Hogwarts, and now it was gone.

"A Death Eater has my Cloak," Harry said. Lupin's words last year, about how in the wrong hands the Marauder's Map could lead an enemy directly to Harry, echoed loudly in his ears. The Cloak was just as dangerous - whoever now had it could roam the halls freely, undetectable by anybody save for Moody, and wait for the perfect moment to ambush whomever they pleased.

Ron and Hermione looked back at Harry, fear in their eyes.

"I hate to complicate things, mate," Ron said, "but how do you know it's a Death Eater that has it? Last time something like this happened, it was Ginny all along. It could be the same thing, it could be You-Know-Who possessing somebody and forcing them to do his dirty work."

"It could also be the Imperius Curse," Hermione added, grimacing.

Harry nodded. "Right then, I'll - I'll go tell Dumbledore."

He got up slowly and walked shakily towards the stairs, not entirely trusting his legs to support him. Everything seemed to be going wrong, all around him. His scar had started to hurt sporadically, Death Eaters had appeared at the Quidditch World Cup, Bertha Jorkins had gone missing, his own name had somehow come out of the Goblet of Fire, the ever-burning torches in the Great Hall had been extinguished, and now somebody had broken into the Gryffindor dormitories and stolen his Invisibility Cloak. It seemed as though all of the pieces were there, but he couldn't quite put them together.

But even if he didn't know how or why it was obvious that somebody wanted him dead. That was what it all came down to. There was no other explanation for his entry into the tournament, or the theft of his Cloak.

He was down in the common-room and almost at the portrait-hole when he heard footsteps coming up behind him. His heart lurched and he spun around, pulling out his wand.

It was just Hermione. She looked from his eyes down to his raised wand, which he quickly tucked away, embarrassed at how easily he had been startled.

"You're almost as jumpy as Mad-Eye," she said, with a smile that didn't reach her dark eyes. Harry tried to smile back, to laugh it off.

"I was going to ask if you wanted me to come with you," she continued. "You look like you could use some company."

The problem was, he really did want her company. His nerves, which had been on edge ever since his discussion with Moody, had gotten an order of magnitude worse, and having Hermione there to talk to would calm him, he knew that. She had an uncanny way of knowing how to put him at ease when terrible things happened.

But he also knew that if someone really did try to attack him on his way to see Dumbledore, Hermione's presence was unlikely to stop them. All that he would accomplish by accepting her offer would be to put her in danger, and that was something he couldn't do.

He'd be fine on his own, he told himself. He was a Gryffindor, wasn't he?

"I appreciate the offer, Hermione," he began, "but I'll be alright on my own. Really, I will, and walking with me would just put you in danger."

He regretted it as soon as he realized he'd said the last part out loud.

Hermione frowned at him. "Harry," she said softly, taking a step forward and putting his hand in hers, "since I arrived at Hogwarts, I've been attacked by both a troll and a werewolf, slobbered on by a three-headed dog, petrified by a Basilisk, and I almost erased myself from existence while travelling through time to save your godfather. I'm past the point where I worry about putting myself in danger, especially if it's in order to help you."

She was looking him straight in the eye, unwavering. "There is a reason I didn't end up in Ravenclaw. I might get scared more easily than you do, but that doesn't make me any less brave. I'm coming with you tonight because I can tell that you need a friend. For that matter, so do I."

She walked past him, out of the common-room, pulling him along with her. Harry clambered out of the portrait-hole, this time closing it behind him (he was realizing, now, that the Fat Lady was very much to blame for the theft), and they started to walk, hand in hand, towards Dumbledore's office.

It was an odd feeling, walking openly through the halls with Hermione's hand in his own. The presentation of the third task must have ended, for the two of them kept passing people on their way down the stairs to the second floor, including a large, excitedly chatting group that looked to be all of Hufflepuff House. Harry kept feeling that this wasn't something he was allowed to show, that he couldn't let people know his secret, but the beautiful part of it was that now he could, and even the 'Potter Stinks' badges couldn't stop him from smiling.

He kept stealing glances at her as they walked. He couldn't help himself. He was still in disbelief at what had transpired today, and he kept looking over in part just to make sure that this was all real, that that really was Hermione.

In part, he looked over just because she was beautiful.

Eventually she caught him looking, and gave a small, demure smile. "It's going to be a while before I'm completely used to this," she said, a slight blush in her cheeks. "I don't really know how this is supposed to work, us going from friends to..." She trailed off, bowing her head.

"Neither do I," Harry admitted. "I only know that I want to spend more time with you and figure it out."

They had arrived at the gargoyle outside Dumbledore's office now, but neither of them let go of the other.

"So what you're saying is we should go on a date," Hermione said. Harry supposed that that was what he had been saying, although not that directly. He wanted to spend time with Hermione - just Hermione - to feel closer to her, but calling it a date hadn't occurred to him.

"I think that's a really good idea," she continued, "and I think I might know the perfect place."

"Where?"

"That'll be a surprise," Hermione said lightly, taking a slow step closer to him. "But that's for another night, anyway. I should let you speak with Dumbledore."

She was only inches away from him now, and Harry could feel her breath on his cheek as she spoke the last few words. His eyes danced around her face, not used to being so close. Her deep brown eyes, her adorably bushy hair, her soft-looking lips...

There was a quiet grinding noise from Harry's right, and he and Hermione leapt apart. The gargoyle guarding Dumbledore's office had turned, and the Headmaster was walking briskly down the steps towards them. Harry didn't know what Dumbledore had seen - it must have looked like -

"Is everything alright?" Dumbledore asked, stopping at the base of the steps. "I haven't seen any of my students react so strongly to my presence since the time I walked in on the Weasley twins huddled over a box of Bertie Botts Every-Flavour Beans. It seemed quite the over-reaction at the time, although I did later discover that they were trying to charm them to all taste like earwax... and that they were intended to be an anonymous Christmas present to me."

"Yes," Harry said quickly, his heart still racing. "I mean, no. No. I was just about to go up and see you, actually, about something urgent. It couldn't wait until morning." He almost said more, but some sort of paranoia stopped him from doing so while he was out in the open. Not that many people even knew he had an Invisibility Cloak, and the last thing that he needed right now was somebody like Karkaroff overhearing what had happened and spreading the news all around the castle.

"As it happens, there is another unfortunately urgent matter that requires my attention, but I shouldn't be long, so please do wait in my office for me. The password is Pumpkin Pasty. You're welcome as well, of course, Miss Granger, if Harry consents."

With that, Dumbledore strolled away down the hall, moving faster than Harry thought a man his age should be able to.

"Thanks again for the company," Harry said to Hermione as Dumbledore had turned the corner, "but I think it would be best if I talk to him alone."

She nodded. "I'll see you back in the common-room."

The gargoyle leapt aside when Harry gave it the password, and a moment later he walked into the warm study at the top of the stairs, closing the large wooden door gently behind himself.

He had only been in Dumbledore's office a handful of times previously, mostly after encounters with Voldemort that had left him too shaken to properly look around.

The room wasn't overly large at ground level, but its walls rose high up above Harry, curving to form a dome perhaps fifteen feet above his head. Shelves lined the walls, filled mostly with books but also with various artefacts and metallic instruments that he didn't recognize. He was just about to take a seat in what had become his usual armchair when a bright silvery glow caught his eye.

Off to the side of the room was an alcove, and in that alcove stood a round stone column, on top of which was a shimmering bowl of a silvery liquid. Harry walked over to take a closer look, his curiosity getting the better of him. As he got closer to the bowl, he started to hear things. Voices. A scream. The rattling of chains.

Harry spun around, but there was nobody behind him. The bowl was undoubtedly the source of the sound; the voices got louder as he slowly moved toward it. He was standing right next to it now, looking down into it, and he could see figures moving within the swirling liquid: a dishevelled, unshaven man chained to a chair as a crowd of well-dressed witches and wizards sat all around him.

Then suddenly his feet weren't touching the ground anymore and he was falling, falling, waving his arms to try and stop, but there was nothing to hold on to.

* * *

Harry found himself standing firmly in Dumbledore's office once again, this time with the Headmaster standing next to him.

"I'm sorry, sir," he said quickly. "It - I didn't know what it was, and I was just standing next to it and suddenly I -"

"Please do not apologize, Harry," Dumbledore cut in quietly. "I left the Pensieve's cabinet open in my haste, and it is perfectly natural to be curious about such a thing."

"The Pensieve, sir?" Harry asked, as he suspected Dumbledore wanted him to.

"It is a tool - a rather rare one, if you will forgive that slight boast - that allows its user to store some of their memories outside of his or her head, and later relive them at will."

Harry's mind had already started whirring, trying to process everything that he had learned from the Pensieve. Thanks to Moody, he had already known that both Karkaroff and Snape had been Death Eaters, but not that Dumbledore had been the one who had - on at least two occasions - testified in defence of Snape. And then the trial that had come after… Harry had known that Neville lived with his grandmother, but never the reason why. He had thought Neville, like himself, was likely an orphan of the war, but the truth was far crueller than that.

He felt himself fill with rage as he thought of those who were responsible: Barty Crouch Jr. and the three Lestranges. No matter how deluded or prejudiced they might have been, torturing a husband and wife into insanity was not just the act of a partisan or a soldier. You couldn't rationalize it away as a necessary evil that had to be committed in the service of some greater good. No, what had happened to the Longbottoms was the work of psychopaths. It was the work of people that relish in the agony of others, and of people who feed off of pain like Dementors do.

Once again, Snape jumped to the forefront of Harry's mind. Snape had been a Death Eater, he had clearly taken no issue in allying himself with people like the Lestranges. Maybe he had even fought alongside them in battle.

Bile rose in Harry's throat as his anger intensified, and he found himself clenching his fist as he stared down at his feet.

Why did Dumbledore always defend Snape? How could he possibly defend a man who had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with people so sadistic they were barely human? And even beyond that, why on Earth would Dumbledore hire him as a professor?

"I have no doubt, Harry, that given what you saw in the Pensieve, you will wish to ask me about Professor Snape."

Dumbledore looked at Harry intently, his light blue eyes seeming to gaze straight into Harry's skull.

Harry spoke reluctantly, feeling almost ashamed. "Professor Moody warned me about him. And Karkaroff. And in the trial, Karkaroff confirmed that-"

"Alastor does not know Severus as I do," Dumbledore said, his voice heavy. He walked to his chair and sat down, gesturing for Harry to do the same. "Like Karkaroff, Professor Snape was once a Death Eater. Also like Karkaroff, Professor Snape left the service of Voldemort before the latter's downfall. But unlike Karkaroff, Professor Snape has never dabbled in the Dark Arts since. Nor will he ever do so."

Harry wasn't sure what to say. He didn't share Dumbledore's conviction in Snape, but he sensed that Dumbledore had no desire to explain his reasons for trusting the potions master.

"At any rate, Harry, I believe you said that had something urgent to discuss with me."

Harry glanced quickly at the clock and saw that it was nearly eleven. More time must have passed in the Pensieve than he had realized.

"I did. My Invisibility Cloak - the one you gave me, from my father - was stolen from my dormitory tonight. Whoever took it also stencilled the Dark Mark into my headboard. That's why I was so curious about Snape and Karkaroff, because they would know how to conjure the Mark."

Dumbledore closed his eyes, his face inscrutable. A moment later he stood up again and began to pace behind his desk. After perhaps a minute, he walked over to Fawkes, who was sleeping on his perch. Harry couldn't hear what he said to the phoenix, but it woke Fawkes, who vanished a moment later in a plume of golden light.

"Professor, whoever took my Cloak … they're going to try and kill me, aren't they? In the maze?"

Harry already knew the answer, but he had to hear it again. He needed to know that he wasn't just paranoid, that he wasn't starting to become a little bit too much like Mad-Eye.

"Yes. I expect that is their plan."

Dumbledore spoke so quietly that Harry could barely hear him. He stood by Fawkes' perch a moment longer, looking deep into the ash left behind from the bird's last Burning Day.

"Come, Harry."

Harry stood up, walking over to the Headmaster so that the perch was between them. Dumbledore didn't look up.

"Harry, it is my belief that whoever entered you in this tournament did so from the start with the intent of using it as a way to conceal your murder. But if it is any consolation, I do not think you are in any immediate danger. Whoever is behind this plan has undertaken a great deal of personal risk this year. I do not believe that they would throw away everything they have worked toward by attempting to kill you before you enter the maze."

Harry took a deep breath. The ashes, which had been in a neat mound, scattered across the base of the perch when he exhaled.

He was feeling somewhat better now. It had been the shock of the theft, and the sudden belief that he would be murdered at any moment, that had sent his nerves into a flurry. It reminded him of how he had felt at one point last year when Ron had woken him in the middle of the night screaming that Sirius Black was standing in the dormitory with a knife. But now that he was able to take a step back, now that he wasn't staring at the Dark Mark on his headboard, now that he had turned the lights on and Sirius was nowhere to be seen, he found himself surprisingly unafraid. After all, he had faced death before. It always came at the end of the year, as regularly as one of his exams, and each time he had defeated it. Whatever would be waiting for him in the maze, it couldn't be worse than a Basilisk, and this time he would at least have the chance to prepare.

"Do you have any idea who it is, sir?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "I am sure it is one of Voldemort's supporters who is ultimately behind it, but that tells us nearly nothing. During Voldemort's rise to power, a great number of witches and wizards were enslaved by his supporters, using the Imperius Curse. There are two types of followers that a man like Voldemort attracts, you see: he is followed by the sadistic and the cruel, yes, but also by those who thirst for power and influence yet are too cowardly to seek it themselves, and who hope simply to curry favour with him. That second type of follower often thinks themselves above violence, and so they prefer to act through subordinates, puppets, and slaves."

Dumbledore finally looked up over the top of the phoenix perch and met Harry's gaze.

"Harry, Voldemort will rise again. All the signs are there, and the prophecy you heard from Professor Trelawney last year leaves no doubt. I am also not the only one who has seen these signs: his followers have as well, and they have grown more brazen over the last months. It would not surprise me to learn that the widespread use of the Imperius Curse has begun once more and that many of this year's events were carried out by an unwilling victim. Nevertheless, I will watch closely over Igor during the task, although he seems to me too frightened of Voldemort's return to be the culprit. I will do the same for Lucius, should he-"

Dumbledore stopped abruptly in the middle of his sentence.

"You said the Dark Mark was stencilled onto your headboard? Not carved into the wood, not burned into it with magic, but stencilled?"

Harry nodded, unsure why Dumbledore had seized upon this point.

"And did you talk to the Fat Lady? Did she see anybody out of the ordinary enter the common-room?"

"I did, on my way back to the common-room. She claimed that she had left the portrait open, but it was closed when I got there."

"Left it open?"

"She said she spent the whole evening in a different portrait, with a few friends. She wanted to save herself the trouble of needing to go back repeatedly to let people in."

"And so she wouldn't have seen anything," Dumbledore said under his breath.

"I've sent for Alastor," he continued at a normal volume, "and I will ensure that he monitors the grounds as well on the day of the task, but he is only one wizard, and he cannot possibly see everything. Regardless, given the binding contract that was created by the Goblet of Fire, you will have no choice but to enter the maze, and once you do so I will not be able to intervene. Whatever happens in there will be determined by your own strength and yours alone."

Harry, unfortunately, had figured as much. He reminded himself to make sure he took up Hermione on her offer to make him a training plan. Of course, there was nothing he could do if someone under the Cloak just decided to hit him with a Killing Curse, but somehow that didn't feel likely to him. The whole point of entering him into the tournament was to make his death seem accidental, and so using the Killing Curse would ruin that plan. It was more probable that the plan was to make it appear as if he had been killed by one of the obstacles in the maze (maybe the three-headed snake?) and that would give him a chance to fight back.

"I'll also have Alastor train you in more advanced combat magic," Dumbledore said, even though Harry had remained silent. "I can safely bend the rules of the tournament to that extent, at least."

"Thank you."

Harry felt as though he should ask more questions, that he should take advantage of the fact that this time (for once) he had advance warning of the danger he was in, but it had been a very, very long day and it was hard to focus on anything. Despite that, one thought repeatedly drifted back into his otherwise empty mind, stubbornly refusing to go away.

"Professor, I was wondering … why would one of Voldemort's followers want to kill me so desperately? What could they possibly gain from it?"

Dumbledore glanced up over Harry's shoulder at the clock before responding.

"You are well known for being the instrument of Voldemort's downfall, Harry. I would imagine that some of his more desperate followers might think, wrongly, that killing you would undo the magic that vanquished Voldemort and thus return him to this world."

That made some sense, Harry supposed, but it didn't explain everything. In fact, the more he thought about what he knew, going all the way back to the night his parents had died, the less sense it all made.

"But then why did Voldemort himself come after me and my parents in the first place? And for that matter, how could they have known in advance that they needed a Secret-Keeper? And once he'd killed my parents, why would Voldemort even bother with killing me? I was practically a baby at the time, I was no threat to him."

Dumbledore took a step back from the phoenix perch, walking over to look at a portrait on the wall. It was, Harry presumed, a portrait of a former headmistress, but the witch within it was soundly asleep.

"Your parents were among the few people that dared to openly resist him," Dumbledore said after a long pause. "Once the Death Eaters moved against the McKinnons, many families in the resistance feared that they might be next. I performed the Fidelius Charm in order to hide as many of them as I could from him, but such a charm is useless if, as in the case of your parents, they put their faith in the wrong person."

Dumbledore turned back around to face Harry, a single tear running down the side of his nose.

"But at any rate, Harry, I fear that I have kept you too late, for without your Cloak you run the risk of encountering Mr Filch on your way back to Gryffindor Tower."

Harry took the hint, bidding Dumbledore a good night as he left. He was exhausted - the clock in Dumbledore's office had shown that it was midnight when he had left - but he still felt far better than he had earlier in the day. He felt as though his life, which had been slowly spiralling away from him recently, was coming back under his control. He knew now, more or less, what to expect from the third task of the tournament, and he could prepare for it. Before long, the cloud that had been hanging over him ever since his name had emerged from the Goblet of Fire would finally pass, and he could enjoy spending what was left of the school year with Ron and Hermione.

Hermione. She was the other wonderful part of today. Ever since shortly after the second task, when he had realized that she wasn't just another friend to him, he had been on edge, trying to keep that secret from her even as he searched for hints that she might feel the same way. He no longer had to worry about that. Sure, there was a whole new host of things to be nervous about, but it was an excited kind of nervous, a good kind. He found himself smiling again, and even the Fat Lady's annoyed sigh when he woke her to give the password wasn't enough to ruin his mood.

Harry crept up into his dormitory as quietly as he could, not wanting to wake anybody, and was surprised to see that his part of the room was more or less back in order. His bed was made, albeit very messily, and his things had been put back in his trunk. The lid, no longer functional, had been laid over top of the trunk anyway.

"You're welcome," Ron slurred sleepily from the next bed over as Harry crawled into his own.

"Thanks, Ron," Harry said quietly. "G'night."

Harry's bed felt remarkably good after the day that he'd had. It didn't take him long to drift into a dreamless sleep, but just before he did, some still-active part of his mind realized something.

Dumbledore hadn't answered his very last question.


	8. Volatilis Lutum

**A/N: Here we go again! I've been working on this chapter for quite a while now, and I realized when it was only about 5/6 done that it was starting to get way way too long, so I decided to split it in half. The good news is this means that part 2 of this chapter will instead be the next chapter, and since it's well over halfway complete it will be published exactly one week from now. I hope this chapter and the one to follow will make up for the long wait, and (as always) please let me know what you think.**

It was seven-thirty in the morning and Hermione was standing in front of a painting of a large bowl of fruit, trying to ignore the problem that had been gnawing away at her for the last week. She had a small basket of S.P.E.W. buttons over her left arm and a few dozen leaflets in her right hand.

She had woken early this morning, wanting to catch the house-elves before they started on breakfast. She had quickly thrown on her clothes, done one last run-through of the speech that she'd re-written last night, and hustled down to the basement of the castle, where she stood now.

She had tried coming down here once before, but the elves had been fully occupied with preparing dinner and so she had left quickly. Coming back today might not have been her best idea, she had to admit, but practically everyone else seemed disinterested in the house-elves welfare, so this was the only logical step. Her hope was that coming to talk in person would make the elves more amenable to ideas like freedom and wages and holidays. After all, Dobby had come to desire those things, so why not the rest?

Steeling her courage, she tickled the pear in the painting with her finger. It let out a somewhat unsettling giggle (it didn't even have a mouth!) and then turned into a green door-handle.

The kitchens were much less crowded this time. There were only two house-elves in sight: one tending to a grill and the other carrying a teetering stack of plates.

"Here, let me help," Hermione said without thinking, dropping her S.P.E.W. supplies on one of the large central tables and walking over to the elf's side.

"No no, not necessary," the elf squeaked, sidestepping around Hermione and depositing the stack next to the grill. She then snapped her fingers, levitating plates off the top and making a number of smaller piles.

"Can I help you, miss?" she asked, turning back to Hermione. "There's no food ready yet."

"Oh, I… I didn't come to ask for food."

That must be the only reason students would ever come down to visit the house-elves, Hermione thought. She couldn't help but feel ashamed on behalf of her classmates for taking advantage of them in that way; as if the house-elves didn't do far too much already!

"I wanted to give you something," Hermione continued, offering the elf a few leaflets and one of the S.P.E.W. badges. "Something to read, and if you agree, you can wear the badge and show the leaflets to the others!"

The elf took the leaflets, although she seemed tremendously confused, and gave Hermione a wary look as she walked away.

That hadn't been an ideal start, Hermione supposed, but at least she hadn't been chased away. Ultimately though, it would all come down to whether or not the leaflets would be convincing. After how badly her previous conversation with Dobby and Winky had gone she had made sure not to use the word "free" anywhere in the leaflets. She'd instead done a cost analysis of all the work that a typical house-elf does, and shown in the leaflet how a fair wage for them would be at least 11 Galleons and 6 Sickles a week. She'd also included a short section on laws in the non-magical world regarding vacation time (she hadn't been able to find any equivalents in the wizarding world, although surely they must exist).

Maybe the house-elves had been too brainwashed to like hearing about freedom, but if she could get them to accept pay and vacations then that was almost the same thing.

The other elf was busy scrubbing the grill and probably wouldn't be keen on being disturbed, so Hermione continued walking towards the rear of the kitchen, where there was an enormous brick fireplace. The elf that she had been speaking with had left through a large wooden door in the back wall, but there was also a smaller door off to each side.

Their living quarters were probably down here as well, come to think of it. Hopefully they were comfortable at least, and reasonably spacious. Hermione couldn't imagine that Dumbledore would stand for it if they were otherwise, but then again he seemed to have no qualms with the concept of slavery to begin with, so who knew.

Hermione was still sizing up the doors when the central one burst open and a familiar pointy-eared face looked up at her.

"Dobby hears from Tilly that one of his friends has come!"

Hermione smiled down at him. Dobby seemed much cheerier than when she, Ron and Harry had seen him with Winky.

"Hello, Dobby. I came down here to ask you-"

"Shh," he interjected, looking nervously at the house-elf by the grill. Hermione's heart sank; she had just noticed that Dobby was carrying the leaflets that she'd given to Tilly. "Dobby knows, but not here, miss."

He led her through the door on the right and into a long corridor. It was well-lit by a number of glowing white orbs unlike any Hermione had seen before, but the ceiling was barely high enough for her to walk upright. Dobby ushered her briskly past a long row of doors, all the way to the very end of the corridor. He opened the last door in the row and waved for her to go inside.

The room inside was much like the corridor: small but bright. There was a round window on one side that looked out under the lake, a miniature fireplace tucked in the opposite corner, and a soft-looking carpet that covered most of the floor.

"Please sit," Dobby said, gesturing towards an armchair next to the window. Hermione did, her knees nearly touching her chin.

Dobby came to stand next to her, his eyes still not quite level with her own.

"Is this your room?" Hermione asked, still taking it in. If so, it was nicer than she had expected.

Dobby nodded. "All the elves have a room like this, miss. Mostly bigger, since Dobby is the newest, but Professor Dumbledore makes sure we are comfortable."

There was silence for a moment. Dobby was wringing his hands together, having tucked the leaflets into his tea-cozy. His earlier cheeriness seemed to have evaporated away.

"Miss," he began, "you need to stop-"

He quieted abruptly, looking down at the ground.

"Miss, you needs to stop with - with..."

He fumbled for a moment with a leaflet, turning it over to look at the logo on the back page.

"... with S.P.E.W," he finished. "The house-elves… you are not understanding what they want."

"But it's not about what they want _now_ ," Hermione replied reflexively. "It's about what they might want, once they understand, and making sure that they have that chance!"

"We do understand," Dobby said, scanning quickly through the leaflet. "We already know everything in here that you want to tell us. And this life is what we wants, miss. To serve well, to care for a family or for students and to keep them happy, 'tis an elf's greatest joy! And so we do not want pay, because it is an insult to our way of life. It is not just a job to us, we do not think of it as a wizard would."

It didn't make sense to Hermione. However much they enjoyed having masters, it was still slavery, it was still abhorrent. It was just that this subjugation had such an old history in their race that they couldn't possibly see it for what it actually was.

"But that's only because they don't truly understand it, not properly," Hermione said, desperately trying to get through to Dobby. "If they were in your shoes and if they had ever known freedom as you did, then they would realize that they wanted pay and vacation just like you!"

Dobby bowed his head.

"Dobby had very bad masters, very very bad, and that was what gave Dobby the want to be free, nothing-"

He snapped his mouth shut, his eyes flickering over in the direction of an ornate lamp on the side-table. Hermione realized what was going on just in time and gently grabbed his thin wrist before he could move away.

"Thank you, miss, even now 'tis not easy to do," Dobby said quietly. He took a deep breath before continuing, his voice wavering slightly. "But Dobby is not like other elves, and sometimes he is shameful for how he feels about these things. The other elves, they are very happy with Professor Dumbledore, just like Dobby is. And please forgive me miss, but the other elves, they - they don't like the things you say when you is here, and they know Dobby is your friend, and they is not good to Dobby, they thinks there are big things wrong with Dobby, and even to Winky they is less good than they should be. You needs to stop, miss. Please."

Hermione squeezed her eyes shut, infuriated both with herself and with the situation. She should have known that it was a bad idea to keep involving the elves directly. That tiny little voice of doubt had been screaming in her ear, but she had just ignored it completely.

And now, as she thought back to the time that Ron, Harry and herself had come down to the kitchens, she remembered how the other elves had distanced themselves when Dobby had talked about liking freedom. She should have realized that things were likely difficult for him, and that she was only making them worse.

This was her fault, but she could fix it. She could find other ways to help the house-elves without needing to involve any of them directly. Maybe this cause was something better left for once she had graduated and was working at the Ministry, anyway.

"Miss?" Dobby asked, looking down at the floor.

"I'm sorry, Dobby," she said sincerely. "I promise I'll stop trying to involve you or any of the other elves in this."

Dobby's mood changed quickly, a bright smile appearing on his face. "Thank you miss, thank you, Dobby knows that this is something important to miss, and Dobby is very grateful."

"Dobby must do something for you to say thank you," he continued. "Dobby can fetch some nice cakes from the kitchen to take with you and share with Masters Potter and Weasley? Or if there is any other favour that Dobby can help with, he is happy to serve."

As much as Hermione knew Ron and Harry would appreciate some cake, something about taking too much food from the kitchens made her feel guilty. Besides, it occurred to her, maybe Dobby could help her with her other problem, the one that had been worrying her for the last week. She'd been scared of it, and so she'd been putting it off because she had had no idea what to do about it. Without Harry's cloak it was far too risky to try the Shrieking Shack or Honeydukes (not that the Shrieking Shack would have been a particularly cozy spot anyway), and if she remembered correctly Fred and George had said the other secret passages were either known to Filch or else blocked off. It was a long shot, but if anybody might know about other areas in the castle or grounds that were off the beaten path, it would be a house-elf.

"Thank you Dobby, but I think Ron eats enough cake already without me bringing him extra. Could I.. could I just ask you to answer a question for me instead? I was wondering if you knew if there were any good, secluded places to... to have a date. I've been trying to find someplace quiet where nobody else will be able to stumble in, but the secret passages are all too risky, and... "

Hermione could feel herself turning red as she spoke, but she tried to ignore it.

"What is a date?" Dobby asked, his voice squeaking.

"Oh, it's.. it's.. it doesn't really matter, I just was hoping you would know of a nice quiet place somewhere in the castle. A good place for long conversations and stuff like that, where Mr. Filch or any of the other teachers won't patrol at night."

"Dobby does not know of any place exactly like that," he said, sitting down in a chair opposite hers, "but you could always try the Room or Requirement!"

"The Room of Requirement?" Hermione asked.

"It is also known as the Come-and-Go room, miss. Dobby has heard that it can transform into any kind of room in the world, depending on what the person using it needs. If you need food, it becomes a banquet hall with a feast. If you need water, it becomes a quiet, clear riverbank. Dobby reckons it could become whatever it is that you are needing from it too."

Hermione breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She had been full of bravado when she had said to Harry a week ago that she knew a perfect spot for a date, but it had turned to panic the next day when she'd realized she didn't know of a single suitable location in or around the castle. And now, not only had Dobby bailed her out, but from the sounds of things the Room of Requirement was, quite literally, the perfect place that she had been looking for.

Dobby told her where the room was and how to activate it, and she thanked him profusely as he walked her back towards the kitchens and into the main part of the castle. He seemed far far happier now, although he did make her give him the rest of the leaflets and buttons that she had made before he left.

While things hadn't gone at all as she had hoped, she supposed that they probably could have gone a lot worse, too. She hadn't had much time to promote S.P.E.W. recently anyway. It had been a full week since the reveal of the third task, and there was only a week left to prepare for it, so her and Ron had both set aside most of their other pursuits to help Harry. Between the three of them they'd come across a number of useful spells, and Harry was mastering them surprisingly quickly, but they still hadn't identified the snake-like creature on the orb that Harry had picked. He'd shown it to her and Ron the day after the reveal, but despite quite a few hours spent in the magical creatures section of the library, they were no closer to knowing what it was.

She should go back and take another look after Potions, Hermione thought. Maybe it was even worth asking Madam Pince for help. Harry hadn't seemed at all troubled by the orb, because after all it did seem like the carving was a type of snake, but Hermione was worried that using Parseltongue to control a three-headed serpent would be much harder than he expected.

By the time Hermione got back to the Great Hall, breakfast was nearly over. She took a seat across from Ron and then reached past Ginny, who was on her left, to grab herself a few spoonfuls of yoghurt and muesli.

"Did Harry come back yet?" Hermione asked the younger Weasley, hoping she could start a conversation. Harry was scheduled to train with Mad-Eye this morning for the second time. He'd made it back in time for breakfast after the first session a few days ago with a small handful of bruises and scrapes, although he'd said that Moody had been very helpful.

Ginny didn't answer. She didn't even look up from her already-buttered toast, which for some reason she had started to saw in half with her knife.

"Ron?" Hermione asked, once it had become clear that Ginny had gone selectively deaf.

Ron looked over at his sister, who was now slowly and deliberately quartering her toast. "Harry hasn't been back yet," he finally responded.

He hesitated a moment, and then slid a heavily-creased magazine over to Hermione. It was opened to the feature article, entitled 'Harry Potter's Darkest Desire'. The date was today's, and the name was that of Hermione's least favourite insect. Hermione sighed, having expected this to happen. This would probably be an especially nasty one, too - Rita was no doubt enraged by her brief imprisonment, and she had had all week to hone this article to make it as vicious as possible. Hermione was just about to start reading in earnest when the sound of somebody getting up to leave drew her attention away. It was Ginny, despite the fact that she hadn't actually eaten any of her toast.

"Ginny, why don't you-"

"I'm not hungry anymore," she snapped loudly over her shoulder at her brother as she walked away.

Ginny's dramatic exit drew the attention of the rest of the table, and Hermione exchanged puzzled glances with Dean and Seamus, who both shrugged. At least she wasn't the only one who didn't understand what was going on. Hermione would consider herself and Ginny to be good friends, and they usually talked fairly often, but that hadn't been the case recently. It seemed pretty obvious that Ginny had been avoiding her for the last few days, although Hermione couldn't fathom why.

"The article's almost funny, actually," Ron said quickly. "She dug up a horrible picture of Harry and uses it to do a blow-by-blow comparison of his physical appearance to Krum's, and then concludes that the only way Harry could have won a girl from him was through using Dark Magic."

Hermione tried to suppress a laugh, but only managed to turn it into a slight snort. It turned out that the picture Rita had chosen was one from second-year, and it showed Harry lying spread-eagled on the floor with his hair standing up on end, immediately after he'd been hit by Draco's spell at the Duelling Club. The caption read, 'Harry Potter, age 12'.

Hermione started to look through the article again, but Ron interrupted her.

"You should go talk to her," he said as he put down his fork, looking pointedly at the spot where Ginny had been sitting.

"I know," Hermione sighed. It was clear that Ginny was upset about something, although she hadn't the faintest idea what, and what with all the craziness happening lately with the Tournament, and Harry, and exams (Merlin's beard, she had to get on those soon!) she had been too busy to work things out with the red-haired girl.

"Do you know what it is that's upset her?"

Ron looked at her as though she had three heads. "I mean, I'd think it's pretty obvious."

Hermione stared at him blankly.

"Wait, you don't know?" he said, surprised. "I figured you had to. Just go talk to her, alright? The way she's been taking this is out of order, but I reckon she's right that you owe her an explanation."

Hermione drummed her fingers quickly across the top of the table, thinking about the various things she had to do today.

"Alright, I'll try and talk to her before Potions," she concluded. She quickly shovelled in a few last spoonfuls of her breakfast and then hustled out of the hall. She had no idea where Ginny had gone, but she headed in the general direction of the common-room, figuring that that was her best bet.

It was probably just Hermione's imagination, but she could have sworn that the number of people wearing 'Potter Stinks' badges had doubled over the course of the last week. The halls seemed full of them, and she had to elbow her way through more than one pack of jeering Slytherins. Even worse than that, though, were the people who whispered anxiously as she walked past. They would give her a sympathetic but half-scared smile, and a few would take a step towards her but then turn back to their friends, as if they were going to approach her but had thought better of it. It was probably not a coincidence, Hermione decided, that among those people were many of the girls that she had seen following Viktor when he would run by the lake.

Finally Hermione saw a flash of fiery hair disappearing around a corner, and she quickened her pace to pull level with its owner. Ginny typically walked to and from classes with a large group of girls from her year, but this time she was on her own.

"Ginny, can I talk to you for a second?" Hermione asked, slightly out of breath.

"I don't have anything to say to you."

"Ginny, I genuinely don't know what I-"

Ginny stopped abruptly, wheeling around to face Hermione. She was a couple inches shorter than Hermione, but the taller girl couldn't help but feel the slightest bit intimidated.

"I confided in you," she spat. There must have been a draft in the hallway, because the ends of her hair had started to bob about gently in the air.

"I told you what I thought about Harry. For two years now you've told me that I should just be myself, and that I should be patient, and that if nothing came of it soon I should think about moving on. And then while I was sitting back and waiting and wondering if I was wasting my time you swooped in and took him for yourself."

Hermione's jaw dropped in horror as she realized what she had inadvertently done to her friend. Ginny had a vibrant intensity about her now, and Hermione could have sworn that she had grown, because suddenly their eyes were level.

"No, that's not.. that's not how it was Ginny, that's not what I meant to-"

Hermione was frustrated at herself for how cliched her words sounded, but she didn't know how else to explain what had happened. She had never felt guilty for the advice that she had given, because for the last few months it had been as much for herself as for Ginny. She'd never thought that she had a chance with Harry, and she'd been trying to convince herself to move on too, but that didn't excuse the fact that when her opportunity had come along she'd completely forgotten about Ginny's feelings. She deserved every ounce of anger that Ginny had to throw at her.

"Don't you dare try and give me that," Ginny scowled. Hermione had to look up at her now in order to maintain eye contact, and when she glanced down she saw that Ginny was floating a good foot above the ground. "Don't pretend that you didn't know exactly what you were doing. You knew that you had to keep me out of the way if you were going to ever have a chance with him."

Ginny's wand was in her hand in a flash, and Hermione reached for hers before she even realized what she was doing.

"Volatilis Lutum!"

"Protego!"

Ginny's Bat-Bogey Hex rebounded off of Hermione's Shield Charm, crashing into the wall with a thunk. A second later there was another thud, as Ginny's feet crashed back to the ground. She stumbled forward, off-balance, and Hermione put her hands out to keep her from falling.

Ginny pulled back from Hermione once she regained her footing, turning her face away from the older girl. She stood there for a moment, her breathing ragged. It took her three tries to steady her shaking hand enough to stow her wand in her pocket, and then she walked away without saying a word.


	9. The Room of Requirement

**A/N: I'm really excited about the fact that this story is, as of this chapter, finally done with all of the setup that it needs. The next chapter will be the third task of the tournament, and the two or three chapters after that will explore the direct consequences of the third task, with significant divergence from J.K's Goblet of Fire. I hope that you'll enjoy reading these chapters as much as I've enjoyed writing them.**

Hermione leaned back against the cold stone wall, trying to calm her racing heart. Ginny had just attacked her. Ginny, who had been her friend for over three years, had just tried to hex her.

It was only after a minute of standing there in shock at what had just happened that Hermione remembered she hadn't dismissed her Shield Charm. A split second later she realized that she was going to be late for Potions if she didn't run. The thought cut through the heavy mud in her head, and she started to speedwalk towards the dungeons.

She was a zombie all through Potions, unable to focus on anything more than chopping, measuring, stirring, and trying to give acceptable answers whenever Harry, Ron or Neville talked to her.

"I'm going to the library," she announced afterward, hoping that it would be a good place for her to collect herself. "Got to keep working on that snake."

She spent about an hour sitting on a wooden stool at the back of the library, a copy of "The Monster Book of Monsters" sitting tamely on her lap, until she came to terms with what had happened. She had, incontrovertibly, wronged Ginny. She couldn't deny that. Ginny had then, somewhat understandably, lost her temper and acted without thinking. Ginny clearly hadn't been herself - she had been so out of control that she had actually been levitating - but that didn't excuse what she had done. Being justifiably angry was no reason to use a hex on your friend, especially not one as nasty as the Bat-Bogey Hex. When you're furious with a friend you find other ways to express your displeasure with them, ways that have a lot more to do with words and feelings and that don't end with your ex-friend in a bed in the Hospital Wing.

What Ginny needed most, Hermione suspected, was time and space. For Hermione to try and resolve this while Ginny was in this state could only make things worse, because they both had things to own up to, and Ginny would be in no mood to apologize. Unfortunately, Ginny tended to be both quick to anger and slow to lose it, so it might be weeks until a good opportunity arose. Hermione promised herself that when that time came, she would do everything she could to make things right.

Feeling much better, albeit still a bit apprehensive, Hermione stroked the spine of the Monster Book of Monsters and undid the twine that was holding it shut. The table of contents listed a short section on magical serpents, but when she flipped through it she didn't see any creatures with more than one head.

Hermione re-bound the book, dropping it at her feet. Not being able to find an answer to something in the library was starting to infuriate her. Maybe it was possible that they were going about this all wrong. Could it be that the creature wasn't a serpent after all, at least in the technical sense? It seemed unlikely, but she knew nothing about magical taxonomy, so maybe the creature was formally classified as a member of some other category. She scoured the library front to back looking for books that discussed any kind of multi-headed beast, even briefly enlisting the unwilling Madam Pince, but her search turned up nothing that even remotely resembled the mystery creature.

It was some time later, as Hermione sat leafing through the pages of 'Hydras and Cerberuses and Chimeras, Oh My!' for what felt like the millionth time, when Ron walked up to her, his footsteps loud against the hardwood floor.

"Any luck?" he asked, leaning against a nearby shelf.

She shook her head. "Still nothing."

"I ran into Ginny," Ron said sharply, looking Hermione in the eye. "She wouldn't tell me what happened, but I'm guessing you have something to do with why she was crying?"

Hermione closed her eyes, her head bowed. "We had a small altercation," she admitted reluctantly, closing her book. Ron's face bore a grim expression, his eyebrows narrowing, and Hermione rushed to continue. "She was furious with me, I was an oblivious idiot who had no idea what was going on, and by the time I realized what I'd done to her and tried to apologize she had her wand out and she tried to hex me. She wasn't thinking straight, but most of this is still my fault. If I'd thought to talk to her about this whole situation weeks ago we could have avoided this."

Ron sighed, his frown fading slightly. "Wonderful. As if this bloody year hasn't had enough fights already."

"I got worried when neither of you showed up to dinner," he continued, his voice more amiable. "Me and Harry both."

"I think we'll work it out eventually," Hermione said, trying to sound optimistic. Wait, dinner? As soon as Ron mentioned the word, Hermione realized how hungry she was, and how stiff her legs were from sitting for so long. She walked over to the window and saw that the sun was just beginning to set. She'd promised herself that she would try to stop working through meals, but given that she'd missed two today she wasn't off to a good start.

"At any rate," Ron said, "I was going to go visit Hagrid. It's been a while. And besides, I was thinking he might know something about the snake thing. Maybe it's even one of his 'experiments' - would explain why we can't find it anywhere. Want to come with?"

"Oh, er..." Hermione stumbled, considering for a shameful fraction of second whether she shouldn't tell the truth. She had made arrangements with Harry to meet at 8 outside of the common-room, and there was no way she'd have time to go see Hagrid first, but she felt awful that she and Harry were abandoning Ron. "I promised Harry I'd meet him tonight," she finally managed to say.

"Well why don't all three of us go visit Hagrid together then?" Ron said, smiling. "He's probably desperate to tell us all about what the Skrewts have been up to."

"I'm sorry, Ron, but me and Harry will have to go see Hagrid another time," Hermione said regretfully. "We have a date." She stared rather intensely out at the horizon as she spoke. It wasn't that she hadn't wanted Ron to know, it was just that she felt too guilty to face him right now.

"Oh. Right then. Right," Ron stumbled. He was also looking out over the grounds with considerable interest. "I uh.. I hope it's nice. I'll say hi to Hagrid for you." Ron started to leave before he had even finished his final sentence, giving Hermione no chance to say goodbye.

Hermione gave him a twenty second head start before she left the library as well, slinging her bag over her shoulder. It was quarter-to-eight, so if she made a beeline for the Great Hall she could grab something to eat extremely quickly and then still make it back to the common-room in time. Of course, if she did that she'd still be looking like - well, she'd look the same as she did right now, however good or bad that was. She pushed that worry aside; by now she'd been in classes with Harry for four years and he knew perfectly well what she looked like, so there was certainly no point in going hungry for the sake of spending ten minutes attacking her hair with a brush.

She sat at the now almost-empty Gryffindor table for the minimal amount of time necessary to eat some beef casserole and then she was up again, trying to smooth some of the creases out of her robes as she jogged up the steps to the seventh floor.

"Fairy Lights," she said to Sir Cadogan, who had unfortunately been chosen to be the Fat Lady's replacement as the guardian of Gryffindor Tower. He could be trusted to not drink on the job, which was certainly an improvement, but he had the annoying habit of insisting on chatting with you for a good five minutes and possibly challenging you to a duel before he would open. This time, however, he must have sensed that she was in a hurry, because thankfully he was quiet.

She dumped her bag and schoolbooks on her bed in the dormitory, and then sorted the books and put them back into place on the top of her nightstand. She then sat at the foot of her bed, taking a deep breath and trying to clear her head of everything that had been flooding it today, from guilt to shock to fear. Hermione didn't want tonight to be about all of the bad things that this year had brought; she wanted it to be the start of one of the good things. She was going to be her best self for Harry, and so this wasn't the time to get caught up in worries. For a moment she thought about stepping into the toilets to use the mirror, but the last thing she needed right now was to run into Lavender or Parvati and have them ask why she was labouring over her hair for the first time since the Yule Ball. She walked back out of the dormitory and through the busy common-room. Harry was waiting for her just outside, caught up in what looked like a losing battle with Sir Cadogan.

"I still say you should have charged!" the knight insisted, his armour rattling loudly as Hermione pushed the portrait-door closed again. "Far better than this cowardly broomstick nonsense everyone was gibbering about! Should have spurred your horse on right at that rogueish dragon, lance in hand, and shattered its scales with a mighty blow for Gryffindor!"

"I've been trying to tell you, I didn't have a horse or a lance!" Harry protested, nodding in acknowledgement of Hermione. He looked exhausted, although he couldn't have been stuck in this conversation for long.

"And you let that stop you? Why back in my day, when I fought the Wyvern of Wye, I had nothing but-"

Feeling decidedly sympathetic, Hermione grabbed Harry's hand and pulled him away from the persistent knight and in the direction of the Room of Requirement.

"Thanks," he muttered to her, as Sir Cadogan yelled after them. Harry glanced over his shoulder and hurried their pace somewhat.

"You looked like you could use a rescue," she said lightly, her eyes on him even as they walked.

He nodded. "Not sure how much more of that I could take, after having Mad-Eye this morning. Ran into him again after dinner too - he said Dumbledore wanted him to schedule another session in a few days, and the next thing I knew he'd dragged me into his office to spend an hour reminding me that I'd probably be dead in a week no matter what I learned. I swear, he's getting almost as morbid as Trelawney."

He spoke more quietly than usual, and maybe it was just the shadows, but the creases under his green eyes seemed deeper than they had been even a day before. He had been like this after the last time he'd met with Moody too, and while Hermione didn't doubt that Moody was justifiably trying to keep Harry on his toes, she still felt a surge of protective anger towards him for making Harry feel this way.

"I think he's a lot like Professor Trelawney," Hermione said. "Moody's Foe-Glasses and Dark Detectors are just crystal balls and tea leaves in disguise. Both of them see shadows and omens where other people don't, and they're wrong about those omens a lot more often than they're right."

"She must have predicted my death a hundred times by now, and yet I'm still here." Harry replied, cracking a small smile.

Hermione nodded, trying to be reassuring. "And you'll still be here after the third task, too. Dumbledore himself is going to be keeping track of everybody that he suspects while the task is going, and Moody will be watching to make sure that nobody can use the Cloak to sneak into the maze. If either one of them sees somebody try to make a move, they'll capture whoever it is in a heartbeat. Dumbledore is the greatest wizard the world has ever seen, and Moody might be old, but he's put more Dark wizards in Azkaban than anybody. They'll keep you safe, Harry. I know it."

She believed what she was telling Harry. She truly, genuinely, did believe it. That didn't mean that she wasn't absolutely terrified, but she had to stay strong. She had to help Harry learn as much magic as he could with the week that was left, and even more importantly she had to be someone whom he could rely on when his burden became too much for him to handle alone.

Harry took a deep breath. "You're right. I've been through a lot worse, I shouldn't be so worried about this. It should turn out alright."

"Of course it will," she said, squeezing his hand.

They walked for a moment or two in silence before Harry came to a sudden stop

"Do you recognize that painting?" he asked her, pointing at a picture of four caged canaries that hung on the left-hand wall.

"I think so," Hermione replied, trying to remember what this hallway had looked like the last time she had walked down it. "It's always been there, hasn't it?"

"That's what I thought too," Harry said, walking right up to the painting. "But I'm also pretty sure this is where the painting of those wizards was, the ones that the Fat Lady was drinking with on the night that my Cloak was stolen. Somebody must have switched the paintings."

He put his hands on either side of the frame and tried to lift it, but it must have been secured in place, because it didn't budge.

The canaries had begun to chirp amiably, and Hermione watched them sing as she thought.

"I suspect it was Dumbledore that had the painting moved," she suggested. "If he moved the Fat Lady because she wasn't doing her job, then he probably did the same to these wizards to punish them for encouraging her."

"Maybe," Harry replied, "but I swear I remember seeing these canaries here way back in September as well. This doesn't make sense."

"There's got to be thousands of pictures in this castle, Harry. Tens of thousands, probably," Hermione said. She knew from _Hogwarts: A History_ that there were actually just over twenty-two thousand, but that didn't seem relevant right now. "Nobody could possibly keep track of where each one is, especially not somebody under as much stress as you are. You probably saw the canaries somewhere else before, and your brain is mixing up those two memories."

Harry nodded, exhaling deeply. "You're probably right."

Harry dropped the topic, and as they continued to walk towards the Room of Requirement they talked mostly about small things. It was nice to be able to chat about something other than the Tournament for a change, and she smiled like a madman through Harry's recounting of Neville practicing his ballroom dancing in the boys' dormitory the day before the Yule Ball.

"Alright," Hermione said a few minutes later as she stopped across from a large tapestry, "we're here."

Harry looked tremendously confused. "Where's here, exactly?"

Hermione grinned. "You'll see."

She paced back in forth in front of the wall three times, her heart racing, but she kept only one thought in her mind just as Dobby had told her to.

I need a good place for a date. I need a good place for a date. I need a good place for a date.

After the third time, a tall mahogany door appeared in the centre of the wall. She opened it and stepped into the room. Harry was right behind her, a look of awe on his face. The room beyond the door was dark, but once they had both entered and the door had shut, a number of candles scattered about the room lit up, providing a warm, dim glow.

They were standing in the most beautiful library Hermione had ever seen. Bookshelves ran up the walls of the octagonal room, going as high as the eye could see. There were plush cushions and beanbags to sit on near the room's centre, and an extravagantly large candelabra hung from the ceiling. She would have to remember to get Dobby an incredibly nice Christmas gift next year, Hermione thought to herself as she rushed to the nearest shelf.

It seemed to be filled with Agatha Christie novels (her favourite), and every single one of them was there. The shelf just above had the complete works of Shakespeare, and the other shelves nearby had Dickens, Austen, Lewis Carroll, A.A. Milne … everywhere she looked she saw wonderful books that she'd either read and loved or had always wanted to read.

"I've never seen so many books before," Harry said from beside her, standing on his tiptoes to look at a high shelf. "There's two whole shelves just on Quidditch strategy! And there's sections on methods of navigating mazes, and understanding curse scars, and..."

He trailed off, and even in the dim light Hermione could see his face turn more than a little bit red. She walked over and saw what he was looking at: a rather large collection of books on dating advice.

"What kind of library is this, anyway?" he asked quickly. "I don't remember ever seeing it on the Marauder's Map."

"That's probably because it isn't always here. It's called the Room of Requirement, and it only appears when somebody is in great need of it. Dobby told me it can take all kinds of different forms depending on what it's needed for, so I just asked it to become a good place for a date."

"So I guess a visit to a library is your idea of a good date then?" Harry asked, smirking slightly. His eyes crinkled as he smiled, like they always did.

"Apparently."

Harry walked slowly around the perimeter of the room, skimming the shelves. Hermione followed him, unsure of what she should do. She knew that she shouldn't be this nervous, but no matter how much she reminded herself that this was just Harry, the butterflies in her stomach wouldn't go away.

"To be honest, this is way better than what I was expecting," Harry said after a while. "I like your style."

"Do you want to do a book exchange?" Hermione blurted out. She realized it was a horrible suggestion as soon as she made it, but it was too late now. "There's loads of books I want to show you, and you can show me some of your favourites, too."

A book exchange? Was that really the best her mind could come up with? Nobody aside from her would actually want to do that on a date.

"I don't really have any favourites," Harry said, sounding embarrassed. "The Dursleys never kept any books in the house, so all I had was what my class read in school and none of it was very interesting."

Right. She should have thought of that, too.

"I guess I can show you this one, though. Ron and I have been trading the library's copy back and forth for years," he continued, pulling an exceptionally slim green volume from a low shelf and handing it to her.

There was a loud click as the book slid out of its place on the shelf, and Hermione only barely managed to read the book's title ('Quidditch Through the Ages') before it transformed with a 'pop' into a broomstick. It wasn't just the book that had changed, either; as Hermione looked around, she saw that all signs of the library were gone, and that she and Harry were now standing in the middle of a hedge-less replica of the Hogwarts Quidditch pitch. She groaned inwardly. As bad as the book exchange idea had been, at least it was better than this.

"Looks like you're not the only one the room listens to," Harry laughed, kicking off the ground effortlessly on a broom of his own.

He hovered maybe a dozen feet above the ground, watching her. "Are you gonna come join me?" he asked, nodding his head towards the broom in her hand.

Hermione swung her leg over the broom, trying very hard not to think about how much cozier and safer the library had been. She hadn't even held a broom since first-year flying lessons, and she'd only proven marginally more adept at flying than Neville had.

She pushed off the ground gently, slowly rising up towards Harry. He must not have had the time to get ready for tonight either, she thought, as his hair looked a complete mess and there were all kinds of wrinkles in his robes. The wrinkles were probably from his lesson with Moody, along with the dark smudges of dirt on his neck and collar. But despite all that, or maybe even because of it, Hermione found that she couldn't look away. Harry had grown into himself a lot over the last year. He was still skinny, but his shoulders had started to fill out, and his face had become narrower and more defined. As much as Hermione had chided Harry and Ron for not realizing until the Yule Ball that she was a girl, she had to admit that it was only recently that she had realized that Harry was a boy.

Hermione ascended the last few feet, finally coming level with Harry. She almost slipped off the broom when she stopped, her sweaty hands betraying her. She was careful not to look straight down, but from this vantage point she was amazed by how complete the room's illusion was. The towers of Hogwarts appeared to rise up into the sky beyond the far end of the pitch, and the grounds were visible all around, although she was quite sure she wouldn't be able to leave the confines of the pitch.

A whistle sounded from somewhere high above, and two balls rose up from the centre circle. Harry caught the first, which was the large red Quaffle, but the second made a sharp turn and buzzed away in a streak of gold.

"Do you have any idea what's going on?" Hermione asked Harry, whose eyes were focussed over her shoulder, no doubt tracking the Snitch.

"Maybe," he said. "I think the room wants us to play."

He lobbed the Quaffle to Hermione, who kept her left hand firmly on her broom and by some miracle managed to corral the ball with her right. She tossed it back to Harry, who had to swerve to the side to make the catch. They continued to throw back and forth for a while, and Hermione slowly gained some confidence.

It still didn't feel as natural as Hermione would have liked, but as they threw they started to talk, and as they talked it slowly got easier. They laughed together over how Ron had nearly choked on his glass of pumpkin juice when they had first told him their news. They made fun of Draco, who had been so taken aback at seeing them walking down the hall, holding hands and smiling, that he hadn't even managed a hateful glare. Without a doubt though, they both agreed that the best reaction had been that of Hagrid, who had beamed at them for so long that he hadn't noticed a Skrewt burning a large patch of his beard. They talked about Rita's article too, and while that one was a lot harder to laugh at, they took some solace in the thought that if they ever caught Rita on the grounds again they could probably talk Moody into turning her into a nearsighted ferret.

The snitch continued to buzz around them, in an almost-taunting manner, and Hermione noticed with amusement that Harry's eyes kept tracking it even when he was talking. Hermione had just finished telling the story of the first time she'd performed accidental magic at the age of ten (she'd animated a pair of dental pliers that had proceeded to chase her parents around the house) when he finally broke.

"I'm sorry, I can't help it," Harry said. "It's bothering me too much."

He tossed her the Quaffle one last time and raced off towards the far side of the pitch, where the glint of gold was dancing.

I suppose Seekers have to seek, she thought to herself with amusement, remembering Viktor's words from after the second task. She watched Harry for a minute or two as he wove around the scoring hoops, the Snitch always just a few feet ahead of him, and then she slowly flew closer. Everything seemed so much slower when you were up in the stands, but from here Hermione was amazed at how fast Harry was flying. Suddenly the Snitch swerved back up the pitch, heading almost directly for her, and without thinking she accelerated, zooming in a shaky line to try and cut it off.

"Hermione, move!" Harry yelled, barrelling towards her like a bullet, his body pressed flat against his broom.

There was no chance of her being able to slow down fast enough to get out of the way, and so all she could do was reach out her hand for the Snitch and hope that Harry could avoid her. Her hand reached the Snitch at the same time as his, and just a split second before they would have knocked each other off of their brooms, there was another 'pop'.

Her heart still pounding, Hermione was relieved to find herself sitting on a couch in what looked like a copy of the Gryffindor common-room. The common-room was decidedly peaceful when it wasn't filled with panicky first-years, she concluded. The fireplace crackled softly as the wood in it burned, and she could actually see the tapestries on the walls for once. Harry was sitting next to her, his hair somehow even more windswept than it had been an hour ago, and the captured Snitch lay meekly on the table next to them.

"Well that was close," Harry said, reaching forward to take the Snitch from the table.

"Sorry," Hermione apologized as he fiddled with the Snitch. "I wasn't thinking."

"Being on a broom tends to to do that to people," Harry replied. He leaned back, smiling. "Happened to me the first time I ever flew, when Draco stole Neville's Remembrall. But sometimes good things happen when you stop thinking for a moment."

He slowly extended his hand to her, the Snitch in it. "Go on, take it," he said. "It would have gotten away from me if you hadn't cut it off."

Hermione took the Snitch from his hand, sliding slightly closer to him as she did so. His eyes were bright tonight, shining like emeralds in the firelight, and Hermione felt a wave of affection welling up inside of her. She had thought about a night like tonight for so long that this still didn't seem real to her. It felt like a dream that she could wake up from at any moment, but she knew it wasn't, and she let herself be carried away by the joy that coursed through her.

"I'm starting to believe I can do this," he said after a while. "The maze, I mean."

"Of course you can."

"I don't just mean surviving," Harry clarified, his face serious. "I think I can win."

"Don't tell me you're that desperate to show up Viktor," Hermione laughed.

"Show up the Slytherins, more like. But honestly, I think I can do it. I know I don't have as much experience as the others, but I have something even more important that they don't."

"What?"

"I've got the brightest witch of her age helping me train."

Hermione blushed slightly. She slid closer to him again, their shoulders now touching. "Me? Books and cleverness? There are more important things."

Harry nodded. "I know. Bravery and confidence and determination. But you've helped me with all of those, too. I couldn't ask for a better..."

He trailed off, his eyes having to say what he couldn't, and before Hermione could think better of it she leaned in and softly kissed him.

She pulled back after a few seconds to smile at him, not caring about how red she was turning.

"Neither could I," she whispered.


End file.
